Dust of Dreams

Chapter Sixteen

Desecration’s gift was silence. the once-blessed boulder, massive as a wagon, was shattered. Nearby was a sinkhole at the base of which a spring struggled to feed a small pool of black water. The bones of gazelle and rodents studded the grasses and the stones of the old stream bed that stretched down from the sinkhole’s edge, testament to the water’s poison.

This silence was crowded with truths, most of them so horrid in nature as to leave Sechul Lath trembling. Shoulders hunched, arms wrapped about his torso, he stared at the rising sun. Kilmandaros was picking through the broken rock, as if pleased to examine her own handiwork of millennia past. Errastas had collected a handful of pebbles and was tossing them into the pool one by one-each stone vanished without a sound, leaving no ripples. These details seemed to amuse the Errant, if the half-smile on his face was any indication.

Sechul Lath knew enough to not trust appearances when it came to an Elder God infamous for misdirection. He might be contemplating his satisfaction at the undeniable imperative of his summons, or he might be anticipating crushing the throat of an upstart god. Or someone less deserving. He was the Errant, after all. His temple was betrayal, his altar mocking mischance, and in that temple and upon that altar he sacrificed mortal souls, motivated solely by whim. And, perhaps, boredom. It was the luxury of his power that he so cherished, that he so wanted back.

But it’s done. Can’t you see that? Our time is over with. We cannot play that game again. The children have inherited this world, and all the others we once terrorized. We squandered all we had-we believed in our own omnipotence. This world-Errastas, you cannot get back what no longer exists.

‘I will have my throne,’ you said. And the thousand faces laying claim to it, each one momentarily bright and then fading, they all just blur together. Entire lives lost in an instant’s blink. If you win, you will have your throne, Errastas, and you will stand behind it, as you once did, and your presence will give the lie to mortal ambitions and dreams, to every aspiration of just rule, of equity. Of peace and prosperity.

You will turn it all into dust-every dream, nothing but dust, sifting down through their hands.

But, Elder God, these humans-they have left you behind. They don’t need you to turn to dust all their dreams. They don’t need anyone else to do that. ‘This,’ he said, facing Errastas, ‘is what we should intend.’

The Errant’s brows rose, his solitary eye bright. ‘What, pray tell?’

‘To stand before our children-the young gods-and tell them the truth.’

‘Which is?’

‘Everything they claim as their own can be found in the mortal soul. Those gods, Errastas, are not needed. Like us, they have no purpose. None at all. Like us, they are a waste of space. Irrelevant.’

The Errant’s hands twitched. He flung away the pebbles. ‘Is misery all we get from you, Knuckles? We have not yet launched our war and you’ve already surrendered.’

‘I have,’ agreed Sechul Lath, ‘but that is a notion you do not fully understand. There is more than one kind of surrender-’

‘Indeed,’ snapped the Errant, ‘yet the face of each one is the same-a coward’s face!’

Knuckles eyed him, amused.

Errastas made a fist. ‘What,’ he said in a low rasp, ‘is so funny?’

‘The one who surrenders to his own delusions is, by your terms, no less a coward than any other.’

Kilmandaros straightened. She had taken upon herself the body of a Tel Akai, still towering above them but not quite as massively as before. She smiled without humour at the Errant. ‘Play no games with this one, Errastas. Not bones, not words. He will tie your brain in knots and make your head ache.’

Errastas glared at her. ‘Do you think me a simpleton?’

The smile vanished. ‘Clearly, you think that of me.’

‘When you think with your fists, don’t complain when you appear to others as witless.’

‘But I complain with my fists as well,’ she replied. ‘And when I do, even you have no choice but to listen, Errastas. Now, best be careful, for I feel in the mood for complaining. We have stood here all night, whilst the ether beyond this place has stirred something to life-my nerves are on fire, even here, where all lies in lifeless ruin. You say you have summoned the others. Where are they?’

‘Coming,’ the Errant replied.

‘How many?’

‘Enough.’

Knuckles started. ‘Who defies you?’

‘It is not defiance! Rather-must I explain myself?’

‘It might help,’ said Sechul Lath.

‘I am not defied by choice. Draconus-within Dragnipur it’s not likely he hears anything. Grizzin Farl is, I think, dead. His corporeal flesh is no more.’ He hesitated, and then added with a scowl, ‘Ardata alone has managed to evade me, but she was never of much use anyway, was she?’

‘Then where-’

‘I see one,’ Kilmandaros said, pointing to the north. ‘Taste of the blood, she was wise to take that shape! But oh, I can smell the stench of Eleint upon her!’

‘Restrain yourself,’ Errastas said. ‘She’s been dead too long for you to smell anything.’

‘I said-’

‘You imagine, nothing more. Tiam’s daughter did not outlive her mother-this thing has embraced the Ritual of Tellann-she is less than she once was.’

‘Less,’ said Knuckles, ‘and more, I think.’

Errastas snorted, unaware of Sechul Lath’s deliberate mockery.

Kilmandaros was visibly shaking with her fury. ‘It was her,’ she hissed. ‘Last night. That singing-she awakened the ancient power! Olar Ethil!’

Sechul Lath could see sudden worry on the Errant’s face. Already, things were spiralling out of his control.

A voice spoke behind them. ‘I too felt as much.’

They turned to see Mael standing beside the sinkhole. He had an old man’s body and an old man’s face and the watery eyes he fixed on the Errant were cold. ‘This is already unravelling, Errant. War is like that-all the players lose control. “Chaos takes the sword.’ ”

Errastas snorted a second time. ‘Quoting Anomander Rake? Really, Mael. Besides he spoke that in prophecy. The other resonances came later.’

‘Yes,’ muttered Mael, ‘about that prophecy…’

Sechul Lath waited for him to continue but Mael fell silent, squinting now at Olar Ethil. She had long ago chosen the body of an Imass woman, wide-hipped, heavy-breasted. When Knuckles had last seen her, he recalled, she was still mortal. He remembered the strange headgear she had worn, for all the world like a woven corded basket. With no holes for her eyes, or her mouth. Matron of all the bonecasters, mother to an entire race. But even mothers have secrets.

She no longer wore the mask. Nor much in the way of flesh. Desiccated, little more than sinews and bone. A T’lan Imass. Snakeskin webbing hung from her shoulders, to which various mysterious objects had been tied-holed pebbles, nuggets of uncut gems, bone tubes that might be whistles or curse-traps, soul-catchers of hollowed antler, a knotted bundle of tiny dead birds. A roughly made obsidian knife was tucked in her cord belt.

Her smile was an inadvertent thing, the teeth oversized and stained deep amber. Nothing glittered from the sockets of her eyes.

‘How did it go again?’ Sechul asked her. ‘Your mother’s lover and child both? Just how did you beget yourself, Olar Ethil?’

‘Eleint!’ growled Kilmandaros.

Olar Ethil spoke: ‘I have travelled in the realm of birth-fires. I have sailed the dead sky of Kallor’s Curse. I have seen all I needed to see.’ Her neck creaked and made grinding noises as she turned her head until she faced the Errant. ‘You were nowhere to be found. You hid behind your pathetic throne, ever proving the illusion of power-the world has long ago grasped your message, though by nature it will not ever heed it. You, Errastas, are wasting your time.’

Sechul Lath was startled that her words so closely matched his own thoughts. Save it, Olar Ethil. He does not listen.

She then turned to Mael. ‘Your daughters run wild.’

The old man shrugged. ‘Daughters will do that. Rather, they should do that. I would be disappointed otherwise. It’s a poor father who does not nudge and then cut loose-as I am sure the Errant will eagerly chime, once he gathers what wits he has left. When that witch stole your eye, what else spilled out?’

Olar Ethil cackled.

Errastas straightened. ‘I have summoned you. You could not deny me, not one of you!’

‘Saved me hunting you down,’ said Mael. ‘You have much to answer for, Errant. Your eagerness to ruin mortal lives-’

‘It is what I do! What I have always done-and you should talk, Mael! How many millions of souls have you drowned? Hundreds of millions, all to feed your power. No, old man, do not dare chide me.’

‘What do you want?’ Mael asked. ‘You don’t really think we can win this war, do you?’

‘You have not been paying attention,’ Errastas replied. ‘The gods are gathering. Against the Fallen One-they don’t want to share this world-’

‘Nor, it seems, do you.’

‘We never denied any ascendant a place in our pantheon, Mael.’

‘Really?’

The Errant bared his teeth. ‘Was there ever the risk of running out of mortal blood? Our children betrayed us, by turning away from that source of power, by accepting what K’rul offered them. And in turn, they denied us our rightful place.’

‘So where is he, then?’ Sechul asked. ‘Brother K’rul? And the Sister of Cold Nights? What of the Wolves, who ruled this realm before humans even arrived? Errastas, did you reach some private decision to not invite them?’

‘K’rul deserves the fate awaiting the gods-his was the cruellest betrayal of all.’ The Errant gestured dismissively, ‘One could never reason with the Wolves-I have long given up trying. Leave them the Beast Throne, it’s where they belong.’

‘And,’ Mael added dryly, ‘ambition does not beset them. Lucky for you.’

‘For us.’

At the Errant’s correction, Mael simply shrugged.

Olar Ethil cackled again, and then said, ‘None of you understand anything. Too long hiding from the world. Things are coming back. Rising. The stupid humans have not even noticed.’ She paused, now that she had everyone’s attention, and something like breath rattled from her. ‘Kallor understood-he saw Silverfox for what she was. Is. Do any of you really think the time of the T’lan Imass is over? And though she made a youthful error in releasing the First Sword, I have forgiven her. Indeed, I have seen to his return.

‘And what of the Jaghut? Popping up like poison mushrooms! So comforting to believe they are incapable of working together-but then, lies can prove very comforting. What if I told you that in the Wastelands but a handful of days ago, fourteen undead Jaghut annihilated a hundred Nah’ruk? What if I told you that five thousand humans carrying the blood of the Tiste Andii have walked the Road of Gallan? That one with Royal Andiian blood has ridden through the gates of dead Kharkanas? And the Road of Gallan? Why, upon that path of blood hunt the Tiste Liosan. And,’ her head creaked as she regarded Kilmandaros, ‘something far worse. No, you are all blind. The Crippled God? He is nothing. Among the gods, his allies break and scatter. Among the mortals, corruption devours his cult, and his followers are the wasted and the lost-Kaminsod has no army to summon to his defence. His body lies in pieces scattered across seven continents. He is as good as dead.’ She jabbed a bony finger at the Errant. ‘Even the Deck of Dragons has a new Master, and I tell you this, Errastas. You cannot stand against him. You’re not enough.’

The wind moaned in the wake of her words.

None spoke. Even Errastas stood as one stunned.

Bones clattering, Olar Ethil walked to the shattered boulder. ‘Kilmandaros,’ she said, ‘you are a cow. A miserable, brainless cow. The Imass made this sanctuary in an act of love, as a place where not one of us could reach in to poison their souls.’

Kilmandaros clenched her fists, staring blankly at the old woman. ‘I don’t care,’ she said.

‘I can destroy the young gods,’ Errastas suddenly said. ‘Every one of them.’

‘And have you told Kilmandaros about your secret killer?’ Olar Ethil inquired. ‘Oh yes, I knew you were there. I understand what you’ve done. What you intend.’

Sechul Lath frowned. He’d lost this trail. Too soon after Olar Ethil’s speech, from which he still reeled. Secret killer?

‘Tell her,’ Olar Ethil went on, ‘of the Eleint.’

‘When the slayer has been unleashed, when it has done what it must,’ Errastas smiled, ‘then Kilmandaros shall receive a gift.’

‘She slays the slayer.’

‘So that, when all is done, we alone are left standing. Olar Ethil, all those things you spoke of, they are irrelevant. The Jaghut are too few, living or undead, to pose any sort of threat. The dust of the T’lan Imass has crossed the ocean and even now closes upon the shores of Assail, and we all know what awaits them there. And Kharkanas is dead, as you say. What matter that one of Royal Andiian blood has returned to it? Mother Dark is turned away from her children. As for the Tiste Liosan, they are leaderless and do any of us here actually think Osserc will go back to them?’

Sechul Lath hugged himself tighter. He would not look at Kilmandaros. Neither Olar Ethil nor Errastas had spoken of the Forkrul Assail. Were they ignorant? Was the knowledge that Sechul held within him-that Kilmandaros possessed, as well-truly a secret? Olar Ethil, we cannot trust you. Errastas should never have invited you here. You are worse than K’rul. More of a threat to us than Draconus, or Edgewalker. You are Eleint and you are T’lan Imass, and both were ever beyond our control.

‘The Master of the Deck,’ said Mael, ‘has an ally. One that even you, Olar Ethil, seem unaware of, and she is more of a wild knuckle than anything Sechul Lath was ever in the habit of casting.’ His cold eyes settled upon the Errant. ‘You would devour our children, but even that desire proves that you have lost touch, that you-we, all of us here-are nothing more than the spent forces of history. Errant, our children have grown up. Do you understand the significance of that?’

‘What stupidity are you-’

‘Old enough,’ cut in Sechul Lath, all at once comprehending, ‘to have children of their own.’ Abyss below!

Errastas blinked, and then gathered himself, waving a hand in dismissal. ‘Easily crushed once we have dealt with their parents, don’t you think?’

‘Crushed. As we were?’

Errastas glared at Mael.

Sechul Lath barked a wry laugh. ‘I see your point, Mael. Our killing the gods could simply clear the way for their children.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Errastas. ‘I have sensed nothing of… grandchildren. Nothing at all.’

‘Hood summons the dead,’ Olar Ethil said, as if Mael’s words had launched her down a track only she could see. ‘The fourteen undead Jaghut-they did not belong to him. He has no control over them. They were summoned by an ascendant who had been mortal only a few years ago.’ She faced Mael. ‘I have seen the dead. They march, not as some mindless mob, but as would an army. It is as if the world on the lifeless side of Hood’s Gates has changed.’

Mael nodded. ‘Prompting the question, what is Hood up to? He was once a Jaghut. Since when do Jaghut delegate? Olar Ethil, who was this recent ascendant?’

‘Twice brought into the world of worship. Once, by a tribal people, and named Iskar Jarak. A bringer of wisdom, a saviour. And the other time, as the commander of a company of soldiers-promised to ascension by a song woven by a Tanno Spiritwalker. Yes, the entire company ascended upon death.’

‘Soldiers?’ Errastas was frowning. ‘Ascended?’ Confused. Frightened by the notion.

‘And what name did he possess among these ascended soldiers?’ Mael asked.

‘Whiskeyjack. He was a Malazan.’

‘A Malazan.’ Mael nodded. ‘So too is the Master of the Deck. And so too is the Master’s unpredictable, unknowable ally-the Adjunct Tavore, who leads a Malazan army east, across the Wastelands. Leads them,’ he turned to Sechul Lath, ‘into Kolanse.’

The bastard knows! He understands the game we’re playing! It was a struggle not to betray everything with a glance to Kilmandaros. Seeing the quiet knowledge in Mael’s eyes chilled him.

Olar Ethil bestowed on them a third cackle, a gift no one welcomed.

Errastas was no fool. Suspicion glittered from his eye as he studied Sechul Lath. ‘Well now,’ he said in a low tone, ‘all those nights tossing the bones for Kilmandaros here… I suppose you found plenty of things to talk about, killing time as it were. Some plans, perhaps, Setch? Foolish of me, I see now, to imagine you were content with simply wasting away, leaving it all behind. It seems,’ and the smile he gave was dangerous, ‘you played me. Using all of your most impressive talents.’

‘This meeting,’ drawled Mael, ‘was premature. Errant, consider yourself banished from Letheras. If I sense your return, I will hunt you down and drown you as easily as you did Feather Witch.’

He walked to the spring, descended into the sinkhole and vanished from sight.

Olar Ethil pointed a finger at Kilmandaros, waggled it warningly, and then set off, northward. A miserable collection of skin and bones. The three remaining Elder Gods watched her walk away. When the T’lan Imass was perhaps fifty paces distant, she veered into her draconic form, dust billowing, and then lifted skyward.

A low growl came from Kilmandaros.

Sechul Lath rubbed at his face. He sighed. ‘The power you seek to bleed dry, Errastas,’ he said, facing the Errant, ‘well, it turns out we were all working to similar ends.’

‘You anticipated me.’

Sechul shrugged. ‘We had no expectation that you would just show up at the door.’

‘I do not appreciate being played, Setch. Do you see no value to my alliance?’

‘You have irrevocably altered the strategy. As Mael pointed out, though perhaps for different reasons, this meeting was premature. Now our enemies are awakened to us.’ He sighed again. ‘Had you stayed away, stayed quiet, why, Mother and I-we’d have stolen that power from beneath their very noses.’

‘To share solely between the two of you.’

‘To the victors the spoils.’ But none of this mad usurpation, this desire to return to what once was. ‘But, I dare say, had you come begging, we might well have proved magnanimous… for old times’ sake.’

‘I see.’

Kilmandaros faced him. ‘Do you, Master of the Holds? You summoned us here, only to find that you are the weakest, the most ignorant among us. You forced us all-Sechul, Mael, Olar Ethil, to put you in your place. To make you realize that you alone have been wallowing in self-pity and wasting away doing nothing. Perhaps Mael thinks our time is done, but then, why has he ensured that his worship is on the ascent? That a Jhistal Priest of Mael now rises to take the throne of the most powerful empire this world has seen since the time of Kallor and Dessimbelackis? Who among us has proved the witless one this day?’

With a snarl, Errastas swung away from them.

Sechul turned to his mother. ‘Mael was warning us, I think. This Adjunct Tavore he spoke of. These infernal Malazans.’

‘And the children of the gods. Yes, many warnings, Sechul. From Olar Ethil as well. Jaghut, T’lan Imass, Tiste Andii-bah!’

‘All subtlety is lost,’ agreed Sechul Lath. ‘Errastas, return to us, we have much to discuss. Come now, I will tell you of the path we have already prepared. I will tell you just how close we are to achieving all that we desire. And you, in turn, can tell us how you intend to release the Otataral Eleint. Such exchanges are the heart of an alliance, yes?’

His poor friend had been humiliated. Well, there was value in lessons. So long as it’s someone else receiving them.

Kilmandaros spoke: ‘Time has come to build anew the bridge, Errastas. Let us ensure that it is strong, immune to fire and all manner of threat. Tell me of how I will kill the Otataral Eleint-for that promise alone I will stand with you.’

He returned to them, eventually, as they had known he would.

‘They never burned the bridge behind them before finishing the one in front of them. But there then came a day when the bridges ran out. Nowhere ahead. The road’s end.’ Cuttle reached out and a clay jug was pressed into his hand. He drank down another mouthful, and would not look at the young soldiers with whom he shared the brazier. The rush of water under the flat-bottomed hull was an incessant wet scrape, far too close beneath the sapper for his liking. Silly, he reflected, being a marine who hated water. Rivers, lakes, seas and rain, he despised them all.

‘Black Coral,’ someone said in a low, almost reverent tone.

‘Like the ten thousand veins in a hand,’ Cuttle said sourly, ‘stories spread out. Not a single Malazan army out there doesn’t know about them. The Chain of Dogs, the Fall. The Aren Way. Blackdog. Pale. And… Black Coral, where died the Bridgeburners.’

‘They didn’t all die,’ objected that same soldier.

It was too dark to make out the speaker, and Cuttle didn’t recognize the voice. He shrugged. ‘High Mage Quick Ben. Dead Hedge-but he died there and that’s why we call him Dead Hedge, so that’s one who didn’t make it. Maybe a handful of others did. But the Bridgeburners were finished and that’s how the histories will tell it. Destroyed at Black Coral, at the close of the Pannion War. The few who crawl out of such things, well, they vanish like the last wisps of smoke.’ He drank down another mouthful. ‘It’s how things are.’

‘It’s said they were dropped into the city by the Black Moranth,’ another soldier said. ‘And they went and took the palace-went straight for the Pannion Domin himself. Was Whiskeyjack dead by then? Does anyone know? Why wasn’t he leading them? If he’d done that, maybe they wouldn’t have-’

‘Stupid, that kind of thinking.’ Cuttle shook his head. He could hear the faint sweeps from the other barges-the damned river was packed with them, with Letherii crews struggling day and night to avoid collisions and tangled lines. Bonehunters and Commander Brys’s escort-almost twenty thousand soldiers, support elements, pack animals-the whole lot, riding this river south. Better than walking. Better, and worse, reminding him of past landings, marines struggling beneath the hail of arrows and slingstones, dying and drowning. Barges raging with flames, the shrieks of burning men and women.

Not that they would be landing under fire. Not this time. This was a leisurely journey, surrounded by allies. It was all so civilized, so peaceful, that Cuttle’s nerves were shredded. ‘It’s just how it played out. Choices are made, accidents happen, the fates fall. Remember that, when our own falls on us.’

‘Nobody’s going to sing songs about us,’ the hidden speaker said. ‘We’re not the Bridgeburners. Not the Grey Swords. Not Coltaine’s Seventh. She said as much, the Adjunct did.’

‘Open that last jug,’ someone advised.

Cuttle finished the one in his hand. Three fast swallows. He sent the empty vessel over the side. ‘ “Bonehunters”,’ he said. ‘Was that Fiddler’s idea? Maybe. Can’t really remember.’ I just remember the desperation. I remember the Adjunct. And Aren’s quiet streets and empty walls. I remember being broken, and now I’m wondering if anything’s changed, anything at all. ‘Histories, they’re just what’s survived. But they’re not the whole story, because the whole story can never be known. Think of all the histories we’ve gone and lost. Not just kingdoms and empires, but the histories inside every one of us, every person who ever lived.’ As the new jug of peach rum came within reach Cuttle’s hand snapped out to snare it. ‘What do you want? Any of you? You want the fame of the Bridgeburners? Why? They’re all dead. You want a great cause to fight for? To die for? Show me something worth that.’

He finally looked up, glared at the half-circle of coal-lit faces, so young, so bleak now.

And from behind him, a new voice spoke. ‘Showing’s not enough, Cuttle. You need to see, you need to know. I’m standing here, listening to you, and I’m hearing the rum; it’s running through a soldier who thinks he’s at his end.’

Cuttle took another drink. ‘Just talk, Sergeant Gesler. That’s all.’

‘Bad talk,’ Gesler said, pushing in. Soldiers moved aside to make room as he settled down opposite the sapper. ‘They wanted stories, Cuttle. Not a reason to throw themselves over the side. Those are the cheapest reasons of all-you should know that.’

‘Speaking freely here, Sergeant, that’s how it was.’

‘I know. This ain’t no official dressing down. That’s for your own sergeant to do, and if he was here, he’d be tacking up your hide right about now. No, you and me, we’re just two old soldiers here.’

Cuttle gave a sharp nod. ‘Fine, then. I was just saying-’

‘I know. I heard. Glory’s expensive.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And it’s not worth it.’

‘Right.’

‘But that’s where you’re wrong, Cuttle.’

There was speaking freely and that’s what this was, but Cuttle wasn’t a fool. ‘If you say so.’

‘All those choices you complained about, the ones that take you to the place you can’t avoid, the place none of us can escape. You say it’s not worth it, Cuttle, that’s a choice, too. It’s the one you’ve decided to make. And maybe you want company, and that’s what all this is about. Personally, I think you’re a damned liability-not because you ain’t a good soldier. You are. And I know for a fact that when the iron sings, having you at my back makes no itch. But you keep pissing on the coals, Cuttle, and then complaining about the smell.’

‘I’m a sapper with a handful of munitions, Gesler. When they’re gone, then I step into the crossbow ranks, and I ain’t as fast a loader as I used to be.’

‘I already said it’s not your soldiering that worries me. Maybe you reload slower, but your shots will count and don’t try saying otherwise.’

Cuttle answered with a gruff nod. He’d asked for this, this dressing down that wasn’t supposed to happen. This speaking freely that was now nailing him like a rusty nail to the wooden deck. In front of a bunch of pups.

‘There were sappers,’ Gesler continued, ‘long before the munitions came along. In fact, the sappers will need veterans like you, the ones who remember those days.’ He paused, and then said, ‘I got you a question, Cuttle.’

‘Go on.’

‘Tell me the one thing that can rot an army.’

‘Time with nothing to do.’

‘Nothing to do but talk. Why is it the people with the least useful things to say do most of the talking?’

The unseen speaker from earlier spoke up behind Gesler, ‘Because their pile of shit never gets smaller, Sergeant. In fact, just keeps getting bigger.’

Cuttle heard the relief in the laughter that followed. His face was burning, but that might just be the coals, or the rum, or both. Could be he was just drunk. ‘All this talk of piss and shit,’ he muttered, forcing himself upright. He weaved, managed to find his balance, and then turned about and stumbled off in the direction of the stern.

As the sapper staggered away, Gesler said, ‘You that spoke, behind me-that you, Widdershins?’

‘Aye, Sergeant. Was wandering past when I heard the bleating.’

‘Go after him, make sure he doesn’t topple o’er the rail.’

‘Aye, Sergeant. And, uh, thanks, he was dragging even me down.’

Gesler rubbed at his face. His skin felt loose and slack, all suppleness long gone. Getting old, he decided, was miserable. ‘Needs a shaking awake,’ he said under his breath. ‘And don’t we all. Here, give me that jug, I’ve worked up a thirst.’

He didn’t recognize any of the faces he could make out round the brazier. They were young, foot-soldiers, the ones who’d barely known a fight since joining up. They’d watched the marines assault Y’Ghatan, and fight on the landing in Malaz City. They’d watched those marines set off to invade the Letherii mainland. They’d done a lot of watching. And no amount of marching, or drilling, or war-games could make a young soldier hungrier for glory than did all that watching.

He knew how they looked upon the marines. He knew how they bandied the names back and forth, the legends in the making. Throatslitter, Deadsmell, Hellian, Masan Gilani, Crump, Mayfly and all the rest. He knew how they damn-near worshipped Sergeant Fiddler. And gods forbid anything bad should happen to him.

Maybe Cuttle had a point with all that pushing down. On things like glory, the making of legends. Maybe he was undermining all those romantic notions for a good reason. Don’t hold to any faith. Even legends die. Gesler shivered, drank down a mouthful of rum.

Tasted like shit.

Bottle slipped away. He’d listened to Cuttle. He’d watched Gesler slide morosely into the sapper’s place, settling in for a night of drinking.

The entire army lounged on the open decks. Getting bored and lazy. After the eastward trek from Letheras, they’d crossed River Lether and marched through the rich lands to the south, finally reaching this river, known as the Gress. No shortage of food, drink, or whores the whole damned way. A sidling pace, a march that barely raised a sweat. League upon league of bickering, nasty hangovers and nobody having a clue what they were up to, where they were going, and what was waiting for them.

A joke ran through the ranks that, after this river journey ended at the city of Gress on the Dracons Sea, the entire army would simply swing back westward, come up round to Letheras again, and start the whole thing over, round and round, and round. Nobody laughed much. It was the kind of joke that wouldn’t go away, and when it no longer fitted the circumstances, why, it would twist a tad and start its run all over again. Like dysentery.

The forty-two barges that had been awaiting them south of the Bluerose Range, just beyond the Gress’s cataracts, were all new, built specifically for transporting the army downstream. Once at the journey’s end, with all the soldiers and supplies off-loaded, the barges would be dismantled and carried with the army overland to the West Kryn River, where they’d be rebuilt and sent on their way down to the Inside Hyacinth Reach, and from there on to the D’rhasilhani-who had purchased the wood. The Letherii were clever that way. If you could take something and make a profit from it once, why not twice? It was, Bottle supposed, an admirable trait. Maybe. He could imagine that such predilections could become a fever, a poison in the soul.

He walked to the nearest unoccupied rail and stared out over the jade-lit water. The hulk of another barge blocked the shoreline opposite. The night air was filled with flitting bats. He could make out a figure over there, doing what Bottle was doing, and he wondered if he knew him, or her. The squads were scattered. Probably someone’s bright idea about knitting new ties and friendships among the soldiery. Or, the even brighter realization that the squads needed a break from staring at each other’s ugly faces. Mix ’em up to keep ’em from killing each other. Hood knew, he wasn’t missing Koryk or even Smiles. Just damned bad luck finding himself on the same deck as Cuttle.

The man was a walking plague of the spirit. Almost as bad as Fist Blistig. But then, what army didn’t have them? Sour, stone-eyed, using their every breath to bitch. He used to admire soldiers like that, the ones who’d seen it all and were still waiting to be impressed. The ones who looked at a recruit’s face as if studying a death-mask. Now, he realized, he despised such soldiers.

Could be that was unfair, though. The misery and horror that got them to that cold, lifeless place was nothing to long for in one’s own life. Was it? What he and all the other younger soldiers had to live with, then, was the curse of the survivors, the veteran’s brand leaking like a septic wound. It stained. It fouled. It killed dreams.

He wasn’t one of them. Had no desire to join their ranks. And could not imagine an entire army consisting of such twisted, scarred creatures. But that was the Bridgeburners. That was Coltaine’s, by the end, anyway. Onearm’s Host. Greymane’s Stone. Dassem’s First Sword. Nothing but the dead-eyed. He shivered, drawing his rain-cape tighter. The Bonehunters was another army headed that way-if it didn’t tear itself apart first.

But wait, Bottle. You’ve forgotten Fiddler. He’s nothing like the rest. He still cares… doesn’t he? Even the question troubled him. His sergeant had been growing ever more distant of late. A generational thing? Maybe. The burden of rank? Possibly, since when he’d been a Bridgeburner, he’d had no responsibilities beyond that of a regular soldier. A sapper, in fact, and sappers were notorious for the threat they presented to their own comrades, never mind the enemy. So, not just a regular but an irresponsible one at that. But now Fid was a sergeant, and a whole lot more. Reader of the Deck of Dragons. Legendary survivor of the Bridgeburners. He was the iron stake driven deep into the ground, and no matter how fierce the raging winds, he held fast-and everyone in turn clung to him, the whole damned army, it seemed. We hold tight. Not to the Adjunct. Not to Quick Ben or Fist Keneb. We hold tight to Fiddler, a damned sergeant.

Hood’s breath. This sounds bad. I shouldn’t be thinking of things this way. Fid deserves better. He deserves to have his life back.

No wonder he ran when she wanted the reading.

The black water swirled past, oblivious to the maelstrom of his thoughts, carrying what it could down to the distant sea. Cold with the memories of snow and ice in the high mountains, slowing with the silts of overturned earth and stones worn down to dust. Huge turtles slid through the muck far below. Blood-drinking eels-little more than jaws and tail-slithered in the currents, seeking the soft bellies of massive carp and catfish. Silt blooms billowed and rolled over rounded stones and gravel banks. Bedded in muck, amphorae of fired clay, fragments of corroded metal-tools, fittings, weapons-and the smooth, vaguely furry long bones of countless animals-the floor of this river was crowded indeed, unfurled like a scroll, writing a history down to the sea.

He had already freed his mind to wander, sliding from spark to spark among the multitude of creatures beneath the spinning surface. It had become something of a habit. Wherever he found himself, he sent out tendrils, spreading like roots to expand his skein of awareness. Without it, he felt lost. And yet, such sensitivity was not always a gift. Even as he came to comprehend the vast interconnectedness of things, so too grew the suspicion that each life possessed its circle, closed-in, virtually blind to all that lay outside. No matter the scale, no matter the pretensions of the things within that circle, no matter even their beliefs, they travelled in profound ignorance of the vastness of the universe beyond.

The mind could do no better. It wasn’t built for profundity, and each time it touched upon the wondrous, it slid away, unable to find purchase. No, we do fine with wood-chips flying from the axe’s bite, the dowels we drive home, the seeds we scatter, the taste of ale in our mouths, the touch of love and desire at our fingertips. Comfort doesn’t lie in the mystery of the unknown and the unknowable. It lies in the home we dwell in, the faces we recognize, the past in our wake and the future we want for ourselves.

All this is what is solid. All this is what we grasp hold of. Even as we long for the other.

Was the definition of religion as simple as that? Longing for the other? Fuelling that wish with faith, emulating desires through rituals? That what we wish to be therefore is. That what we seek in truth exists. That in believing we create, and in creating we find.

By that argument, is not the opposite equally true? That what we reject ceases. That ‘truth’ is born in what we seek. That we create in order to believe. That we find only what we have created.

That wonder does not exist outside ourselves?

By our belief, we create the gods. And so, in turn, we can destroy them. With a single thought. A moment’s refusal, an instant’s denial.

Is this the real face of the war to come?

Chilled by the notion, Bottle contracted his senses, fled the indifferent sparks swirling through the river’s depths. He needed something… closer. Something human. He needed his rats in the hold.

Deadsmell coughed, and then dropped two coins into the trough. ‘You won’t get your cage, Throatslitter. You watch as four comes back to me.’ He looked up and scowled. ‘What’s wrong? Throw the bones, fool.’

‘You must be kidding. Ebron?’

‘Aye, he glamoured the trough.’

Throatslitter leaned forward. ‘You got yourself a problem, Deadsmell-and heed this too, Ebron, since you’re a mage and all-’

‘Hey! I just told you-’

‘And kindly, aye, you did. But listen anyway. Deadsmell, might be it’s a safe thing to be magicking the casts and whatnot, so long as you’re playing nitwits or fellow spooks or both. But, see, I’m Throatslitter, remember? I kill people for a living, in ways no reasonable, sane soldier could hope to imagine. Am I getting through here? You bring your talents to this game, maybe so will I.’

‘Gods below,’ Deadsmell said, ‘no need to get all riled.’

‘You cheated.’

‘So?’

‘With sorcery!’

‘I’m not quick enough for the other stuff, not any more. So maybe I was desperate.’

‘Maybe? Ebron-you got to agree here-a clean cheat, well, that’s expected. But a magicked one, that’s not acceptable. That’s knife-kissing stuff, and if I wasn’t so damned magnanimous, not to mention being sober enough to know that killing the squad healer’s probably not a good idea, why, there’d be blood running a’tween the boards right now.’

‘He’s got a point, Deadsmell. Here I figured on joining this game all clean like-’

Deadsmell’s snort cut him off. ‘You threw a web over the whole field when you sat down, Ebron. I was just giving it a twist.’

Throatslitter stared, and then held up the first polished bone. ‘See this, Ebron? Since you’re so happy to magic everything, let’s see how you do eating this. And the next one. In fact, how ’bout you eat them all?’

‘Not a chance-’

Throatslitter lunged over the chalked-out field on the deck. Ebron shrieked.

Things got ugly, and Bottle’s rat was lucky to escape unscathed.

Skulldeath sat huddled beneath blankets, staring morosely at the unconscious form of Hellian. She had passed out halfway through their love-making, which probably wasn’t unusual. Another soldier was sitting nearby, studying the Seven Cities prince with a knowing expression on his face.

The young man’s need for comfort and all the rest was not doomed this night, and in a short time he would slide over. It was a good thing that the only thing Hellian was possessive about was her rum and whatnot. She eyed a jug in someone else’s hand with all the fiery jealousy of a jilted lover. In any case, a drunk she might be, but she was no fool when it came to Skulldeath’s confused desires.

No, the real fool in the equation was sitting off to one side. Sergeant Urb, whose love for the woman glittered like the troubled waters of a spring, fed unceasingly from the bedrock of his childlike faith. A faith in the belief that one day her thoughts would clear, enough for her to see what was standing right in front of her. That the seduction of alcohol would suddenly sour.

The man was an idiot. But there were idiots aplenty in the world. An unending supply, in fact.

When Skulldeath finally stirred, Bottle edged out of the rat’s mind. Watching things like that-love-making-was too creepy. Besides, hadn’t his grandmother pounded into him the risk of deadly perversions offered by his talents? Oh, she had, she had indeed.

Skanarow moved up to stand alongside Captain Ruthan Gudd where he leaned on the rail.

‘Dark waters,’ she murmured.

‘It’s night.’

‘You like keeping things simple, don’t you?’

‘It’s because things are, Skanarow. All the complications we suffer through are hatched inside our own skulls.’

‘Really? Doesn’t make them any less real, though. Does it?’

He shrugged. ‘Something you want?’

‘Many things, Ruthan Gudd.’

He looked across at her-seemed startled to find how close she stood, almost as tall as he was, her Kanese eyes dark and gleaming-and then away again. ‘And what makes you think I can help you with any of them?’

She smiled, though the captain was not paying attention, and it was a lovely smile. ‘Who promoted you?’ she asked.

‘A raving lunatic.’

‘Where?’

He raked fingers through his beard, scowled. ‘And all this is in aid of what, precisely?’

‘Kindly was right, you know. We need to work together. You, I want to know more about, Ruthan Gudd.’

‘It’s not worth it.’

She leaned on the railing. ‘You’re hiding, Captain. But that’s all right. I’m good at finding things out. You were among the first list of officers for the Fourteenth. Meaning you were in Malaz City, already commissioned and awaiting attachment. Now, which armies washed up on Malaz Island too torn up to keep intact? The Eighth. The Thirteenth. Both from the Korelri Campaign. Now, the Eighth arrived at about the time the Fourteenth shipped out, but given the slow pace of the military ink-scratchers, it’s not likely you were from the Eighth-besides, Faradan Sort was, and she doesn’t know you. I asked. So, that leaves the Thirteenth. Which is rather… interesting. You served under Greymane-’

‘I’m afraid you got it all wrong,’ Ruthan Gudd cut in. ‘I came in on a transfer from Nok’s fleet, Skanarow. Wasn’t even a marine-’

‘Which ship did you serve on?’

‘The Dhenrabi-’

‘Which sank off the Strike Bight-’

‘Aye-’

‘About eighty years ago.’

He eyed her for a long moment. ‘Now, that kind of recall verges on the obsessive, don’t you think?’

‘As opposed to pathological lying, Captain?’

‘That was the first Dhenrabi. The second one slammed into the Wall at five knots. Of the two hundred and seventy-two on board, five of us were dragged out by the Stormguard.’

‘You stood the Wall?’

‘No, I was handed over in a prisoner exchange.’

‘Into the Thirteenth?’

‘Straight back to the fleet, Skanarow. We’d managed to capture four Mare triremes loaded with volunteers for the Wall-aye, hard to believe anyone would volunteer for that. In any case, the Stormguard were desperate for the new blood. So, you can put all your suspicions to rest, Captain. My history is dull and uneventful and far from heroic. Some mysteries, Skanarow, aren’t worth knowing.’

‘All sounds very convincing, I’ll grant you that.’

‘But?’

She gave him another bright smile, and this one he saw. ‘I still think you’re a liar.’

He pushed himself away from the railing. ‘Lots of rats on these barges, I’ve noticed.’

‘We could go hunting.’

Ruthan Gudd paused, combed his beard, and then shrugged. ‘Hardly worth the trouble, I should think.’

When he walked off, the Kanese woman hesitated, and then followed.

‘Gods below,’ Bottle muttered, ‘everyone’s getting it this night.’ He felt a stab somewhere deep within him, an old, familiar one. He’d not been the kind of man that women chased down. He’d had friends who rolled from one bed to the next, every one of those beds soft and warm. He’d had no such fortune. The irony of the thing that visited him in his dreams was that much sharper, in how it mocked the truths of his life.

Not that she’d been appearing of late, not for a month. Maybe she’d grown tired of him. Maybe she’d taken all she needed, whatever that was. But those last few times had been frightening in their desperation, the fear in her unhuman eyes. He’d awaken to the stench of grass fires on the savannah, the sting of smoke in his eyes and the thunder of fleeing herds ringing in his skull. Sickened by the overwhelming sense of dislocation, he would lie shivering beneath his threadbare blankets like a fevered child.

A month of peace, but why then did her absence fill him with foreboding?

The barge opposite had slipped ahead, riding some vagary of the current, and he could now see the eastern shore of the river. A low bank of boulders and reeds and beyond that rolling plains lit a luminous green by the jade slashes in the southern sky. Those grasslands should have been teeming with wildlife. Instead, they were empty.

This continent felt older than Quon Tali, older than Seven Cities. It was a land that had been fed on for too long.

On the western shore, farmland formed narrow strips with one end reaching down to the river and the other, a third of a league inland, debouching on to the network of roads crisscrossing the region. Without these farms, the Letherii would starve. Yet Bottle was troubled by the dilapidated condition of many of the homesteads, the sagging barns and weed-ringed silos. Not a single stand of trees remained; even the stumps had been pulled from the withered earth. The alder and aspen windbreaks surrounding the farm buildings looked skeletal, not parched but perhaps diseased. Broad fans of topsoil formed muddy islands just beyond drainage channels, making that side of the river treacherous. The rich earth was drifting away.

Better indeed, then, to be facing the eastern shoreline, desolate as it was.

Some soldier had been making the circuit, pacing the barge as if it was a cage, and he’d heard the footsteps pass behind him twice since he’d first settled at the railing. This time, those boots came opposite him, hesitated, and then clumped closer.

A midnight-skinned woman arrived on his left, setting hands down on the rail.

Bottle searched frantically for her name, gave up and sighed. ‘You’re one of those Badan Gruk thought drowned, right?’

She glanced over. ‘Sergeant Sinter.’

‘With the beautiful sister-oh, not that you’re not-’

‘With the beautiful sister, aye. Her name’s Kisswhere, which is a kind of knowing wink all on its own, isn’t it? Sometimes names find you, not the other way round. So it was with my sister.’

‘Not her original name, I take it.’

‘You’re Bottle. Fiddler’s mage, the one he doesn’t talk about-why’s that?’

‘Why doesn’t he talk about me? How should I know? What all you sergeants yak about is no business of mine anyway-so if you’re curious about something Fid’s saying or not saying, why don’t you just ask him?’

‘I would, only he’s not on this barge, is he?’

‘Bad luck.’

‘Bad luck, but then, there’s you. When Fiddler lists his, uh, assets, it’s like you don’t even exist. So, I’m wondering, is it that he doesn’t trust us? Or maybe it’s you he doesn’t trust? Two possibilities, two directions-unless you can think of another one?’

‘Fid’s been my only sergeant,’ Bottle said. ‘If he didn’t trust me, he’d have long since got rid of me, don’t you think?’

‘So it’s us he doesn’t trust.’

‘I don’t think trust has anything to do with it, Sergeant.’

‘Shaved knuckle, are you?’

‘Not much of one, I’m afraid. But I suppose I’m all he’s got. In his squad, I mean.’

She’d chopped short her hair, probably to cut down on the lice and whatnot-spending a few months in a foul cell had a way of making survivors neurotic about hygiene-and she now ran the fingers of both hands across her scalp. Her profile, Bottle noted with a start, was pretty much… perfect.

‘Anyway,’ Bottle said, even as his throat tightened, ‘when you first showed up, I thought you were your sister.’ And then he waited.

After a moment, she snorted. ‘Well now, that took some work, I’d wager. Feeling lonely, huh?’

He tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound pathetic. Came up with nothing. It all sounded pathetic.

Sinter leaned back down on the rail. She sighed. ‘The first raiding parties us Dal Honese assembled-long before we were conquered-were always a mess. Suicidal, in fact. You see, no way was a woman going to give up the chance to join in, so it was always both men and women forming the group. But then, all the marriages and betrothals started making for trouble-husbands and wives didn’t always join the same parties; sometimes one of them didn’t even go. But a week or two on a raid, well, fighting and lust suckle from the same tit, right? So, rather than the whole village tearing itself apart in feuds, jealous rages and all that, it was decided that once a warrior-male or female, married or betrothed-left the village on a raid, all pre-existing ties no longer applied.’

‘Ah. Seems a reasonable solution, I suppose.’

‘That depends. Before you knew it, ten or twelve raiding parties would set out all at once. Leaving the village mostly empty. With the choice between living inside rules-even comfortable ones-and escaping them for a time, well, what would you choose? And even worse, once word reached the other tribes and they all adopted the same practice, well, all those raiding parties started bumping into each other. We had our first full-scale war on our hands. Why be a miserable farmer or herder with one wife or one husband, when you can be a warrior drumming a new partner every night? The entire Dal Hon confederacy almost self-destructed.’

‘What saved it?’

‘Two things. Exhaustion-oh, well, three things, now that I think on it. Exhaustion. Another was the ugly fact that even free stuff isn’t for free. And finally, apart from imminent starvation, there were all those squalling babies showing up nine months later-a population explosion, in fact.’

Bottle was frowning. ‘Sinter, you could have just said “no”, you know. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that word.’

‘I gave up the Dal Honese life, Bottle, when I joined the Malazan marines.’

‘Are you deliberately trying to confuse me?’

‘No. Just saying that I’m being tugged two ways-I already got a man chasing me, but he’s a bad swimmer and who knows which barge he’s on right now. And I don’t think I made any special promises. But then, back at the stern-where all the fun is-there’s this soldier, a heavy, who looks like a marble statue-you know, the ones that show up at low tide off the Kanese coast. Like a god, but without all the seaweed-’

‘All right, Sergeant, I see where you’re going, or going back to, I mean. I’m no match for that, and if he’s offering-’

‘He is, but then, a drum with him might complicate things. I mean, I might get possessive.’

‘But that’s not likely with me.’

‘Just my thinking.’

Bottle eyed the dark waters roiling past below, wondering how fast he’d sink, and how long it took to drown when one wasn’t fighting it.

‘Oh,’ she murmured, ‘I guess that was a rather deflating invitation, wasn’t it?’

‘Well put, Sergeant.’

‘Okay, there’s more.’

‘More of what?’ He could always open his wrists before plunging in. Cut down on the panic and such.

‘I got senses about things, and sometimes people, too. Feelings. Curiosity. And I’ve learned it pays to follow up on that when I can. So, with you, I’m thinking it’s worth my while to get to know you better. Because you’re more than you first seem, and that’s why Fid’s not talking.’

‘Very generous, Sergeant. Tell you what, how about we share a meal or two over the next few days, and leave it at that. At least for now.’

‘I’ve made a mess of this, haven’t I? All right, we’ve got lots of time. See you later, Bottle.’

Paralt poison, maybe a vial’s worth, and then a knife to the heart to go with the slitted wrists, and then the drop over the side. Drowning? Nothing to it. He listened to the boots clump off, wondering if she’d pause at some point to wipe off what was left of him from her soles.

Some women were just out of reach. It was a fact. There were ones a man could get to, and then others he could only look at. And they in turn could do the calculations in the span of the barest flutter of an eye-walk up or walk over, or, if need be, run away from.

Apes did the same damned thing. And monkeys and parrots and flare snakes: the world was nothing but matches and mismatches, posturing and poses, the endless weighing of fitness. It’s a wonder the useless ones among us ever breed at all.

A roofed enclosure provided accommodation for the Adjunct and her staff of one, Lostara Yil, as well as her dubious guest, the once-priest Banaschar. Screened from the insects, cool in the heat of the day and warm at night when the mists lifted from the water. One room functioned as a mobile headquarters, although in truth there was little need for administration whilst the army traversed the river. The single table bore the tacked maps-sketchy as they were-for the Wastelands and a few scraps marking out the scattered territories of Kolanse. These latter ones were renditions of coastlines for the most part, pilot surveys made in the interests of trade. The vast gap in knowledge lay between the Wastelands and those distant coasts.

Banaschar made a point of studying the maps when no one else was in the room. He wasn’t interested in company, and conversations simply left him weary, often despondent. He could see the Adjunct’s growing impatience, the flicker in her eyes that might be desperation. She was in a hurry, and Banaschar thought he knew why, but sympathy was too rich a sentiment to muster, even for her and the Bonehunters who blindly followed her. Lostara Yil was perhaps more interesting. Certainly physically, not that he had any chance there. But it was the haunted shadow in her face that drew him to her, the stains of old guilt, the bitter flavours of regret and grievous loss. Such desires, of course, brought him face to face with his own perversions, his attraction to dissolution, the allure of the fallen. He would then tell himself that there was value in self-recognition. The challenge then was in measuring that value. A stack of gold coins? Three stacks? A handful of gems? A dusty burlap sack filled with dung? Value indeed, these unblinking eyes and their not-too-steady regard.

Fortunately, Lostara had little interest in him, relegating his hidden hungers to harmless imaginings, where the illusions served to gloss over the wretched realities. Dissolution palled in the details, even as blazing health and vigour could not but make a realist-like him-choke on irony. Death, after all, played against the odds with a cheating hand. It was a serious struggle to find righteous moralities in who lived and who died. He often thought of the bottle he reached for, and told himself: Well, at least I know what will kill me. What about that paragon of perfect living, cut down by a mole on his back he couldn’t even see? What about the glorious young giant who trips on his own sword in his first battle, bleeding out from a cut artery still thirty paces from the enemy? The idiot who falls down the stairs? Odds, don’t talk to me about odds-take a good look at the Hounds’ Toll if you don’t believe me.

Still, she wasn’t eager for his company so that conversation would have to wait. Her aversion was disappointing and somewhat baffling. He was educated, wasn’t he? And erudite, when sober and sometimes even when not sober. As capable of a good laugh as any defrocked priest with no future. And as for his own dissolution, well, he wasn’t so far along as to have lost the roguish qualities that accompanied that dissolution, was he?

He could walk the decks, he supposed, but then he would have no choice but to let the miasma of the living swirl over him with all the rank insistence that too many sweaty, unwashed bodies could achieve. Not to mention the snatches of miserable conversation assailing him as he threaded through the prostrate, steaming forms-nothing was uglier, in fact, than soldiers at rest. Nothing was more insipid, more degenerate, or more honest. Who needed reminding that most people were either stupid, lazy or both?

No, ever since the sudden disappearance of Telorast and Curdle-almost a month ago, now-he was better off with these maps, especially the blank places that so beckoned him. They should be feeding his imagination, even his sense of wonder, but that wasn’t why they so obsessed him. The unmarked spans of parchment and hide were like empty promises. The end of questions, the failure of the pursuit of knowledge. They were like forgotten dreams, ambitions abandoned to the pyres so long ago not a single fleck of ash remained.

He so wanted such blank spaces, spreading through the maps of his own history, the maps pinned to that curling table of bone that was the inside of his skull, the cave walls of his soul. Here be thy failures. Of resonance and mystery and truth. Here be the mountains vanishing in the mists, never to return. Here be the rivers sinking into the sands, and these are the sands that never rest. And the sky that looks down and sees nothing. Here, aye, is the world behind me, for I was never much of a map-maker, never much the surveyor of deeds.

Bleach out the faces, scour away the lives, scrape down the betrayals. Soak these maps until all the inks blur and float and wash away.

It is the task of priests to offer absolution, after all. And I shall begin by absolving myself.

It’s the lure, you see, of dissolution.

And so he studied the maps, all those empty spaces.

The river was a promise. That it could take the knife from Lostara’s hand. A glimmering flash and gone, for ever gone. The silts could then swallow everything up, making preservation and rot one and the same. The weight of the weapon would defy the current-that was the important thing, the way it would refuse to be carried along. Some things could do that. Some things possessed the necessary weight to acquire a will of their own.

She could follow the knife into the stream, but she knew she’d be tugged and pulled, spun and rolled onward, because no one was a knife, no one could stay in one place, no matter how hard they tried.

Lately, she had been thinking about the Red Blades, the faces and the life she had once known. It was clear to her now that what was past had stopped moving, but the sense of distance ever growing behind her was proving an illusion. Eddies drew her back, and all those mired memories waited to catch her like hidden snags.

A knife in hand, then, was sound wisdom. Best not surrender it to these troubled waters.

The Red Blades. She wondered if that elite company of fanatics still served the Empress. Who would have taken command? Well, there were plenty, enough of them to make the accession a bloody one. Had she been there, she too would have made a try. A knife in hand, then, was an answer to many things. The Adjunct’s irritation with it bordered on obsession, but she didn’t understand. A weapon needs to be maintained, after all. Honed, oiled, sliding quickly from the sheath. With that knife, Lostara could cut herself loose whenever she liked.

A little earlier, she had sat at the evening meal with Tavore, a ritual of theirs since leaving Letheras. Food and wine and not much in the way of conversation. Every effort Lostara made to draw the Adjunct out, to come to know her better-on a more personal level-had failed. For a long time, Lostara had concluded that the woman in command of the Bonehunters was simply incapable of revealing her vulnerable side. A flaw in her personality, as impossible to reject or change as the colour of one’s eyes. But Lostara was coming to believe that Tavore was afflicted with something else. She behaved as would a widow, the kind that then made mourning a way of life, a ritualized assembly of habits. The light of day had become a thing to turn away from. A gesture of invitation was answered with muttered regrets. And the sorrowing mask never left her face.

A widow should not be commanding an army, and the thought of Adjunct Tavore leading that army into a war left Lostara both disturbed and frightened. To wear the mask of the widow was to reject life itself, scattering ashes into one’s own path ahead, making the future as grey as the past. It was as if a pyre awaited them all, and at the moment of standing on the threshold of those murderous flames, she saw Tavore Paran stride forward, bold and resolute. And the army at her back would simply follow.

Two people seated across from one another, silent and trapped inside the world of their unspoken, private thoughts. The waters never blended, and the currents of the other were for ever strange and forbidding. There was no comfort in these suppers. They were, in fact, excruciating.

She quickly made her escape. Each night, retreating to the silk-walled chamber that was her bedroom. Where she sharpened and oiled her knife to drive away the red stain. Solitude could be an unwelcome place, but even the unwelcome could become habit.

Lostara had heard Banaschar’s footsteps as he headed for his temple of maps. They were steady this night, those footsteps, which meant he was more or less sober. Not often the case, alas, which was too bad-or perhaps not. Sometimes-his clear, sober times-the bleak horror in his eyes could overwhelm. What had it been like, worshipping the Worm of Autumn, that pale bitch of decay? It would take a particular person to be drawn to such a thing. One for whom abject terror meant facing the nightmare. Or, conversely, one who hungered for what could not be avoided, the breaking down of flesh and dreams, the knowledge of the multitude of carrion eaters that waited for him at life’s end.

But the Worm had cast him out. She had embraced all her other lovers, but not Banaschar. What did that mean to the man? The eaters would have to wait. The nightmare was not yet ready to meet his eyes. Obeisance to the inevitable was denied. Go away.

So, he would begin the rotting from the inside out. Spilling libations to drown the altar of his own soul. It was not desecration, it was worship.

The knife-edge went snick against the whetstone, steady as a heartbeat, each side in counter-beat as she flipped the blade in perfect rhythm. Snick snick snick…

Here in this cloth house, the others had their rituals. While she-she had her tasks of maintenance and preparedness. As befitted a soldier.

Stormy sat, back against the stepped rail that served as the barge’s gunwale, positioned just so. Opposite, the jade slashes loomed in the south sky, fierce and ominous, and to his eyes it seemed the heavens were coming for him, a personal and most private vendetta. He tried to think of a guilt worthy of the magnitude. That pouch of coins he’d once lifted from a drunk noble in Falar? He’d been able to buy a decent knife with that. How old had he been? Ten? Twelve?

Maybe that passed-out woman he’d groped? That friend of his aunt’s, easily twice his age-her tits had felt huge in his hands, heavy and wayward, and she’d moaned when he pinched her nipples, legs shifting and opening up-and what would a fifteen-year-old boy do with that? Well, the obvious, he supposed. In went his finger, and then a few more.

At some point she’d opened her eyes, frowned up at him, as if trying to place him. And then she’d sighed, the way a mother sighed when a wide-eyed son pressed her with awkward questions. And she took hold of that hand with all its probing fingers-he’d expected her to pull him out. Instead, she pushed the whole hand inside. He didn’t even think that was possible.

Drunk women still held a certain fascination for Stormy, but he never went after them, in case he heard that sigh again, the one that could turn him back into a nervous, lip-licking fifteen-year-old. Guilt, aye, it was a terrible thing. The world tilted, came back, eager to crush him flat. Because doing something wrong pushed it the other way, didn’t it? Keep pushing until you lose your footing and then wait for the sudden shadow, the huge thing blotting out the sky. Splat was another word for justice, as far as he was concerned. When it all comes back, aye.

He’d thrown his sister into a pond, once. But then, she’d been doing that to him for years, until that day when he realized he was bigger and stronger than she was. She’d hissed and spat her way back out, a look of outrage on her face. Recalling that, Stormy smiled. Justice by his own hand-no reason for feeling guilty about that one.

He’d killed plenty of people, of course, but only because they’d been trying to kill him and would have done just that if he’d let them. So that didn’t count. It was the soldier’s pact, after all, and for all the right decisions that kept one alive, a thousand things one could do nothing about could take a fool down. The enemy wasn’t just the one in front of you-it was the uncertain ground underfoot, the stray arrow, the flash of blinding sunlight, the gust of grit in the eye, the sudden muscle cramp or the snapped blade. A soldier fought against a world of enemies each and every time, and walking free of that was a glory to make the gods jealous. Maybe the guilt showed up, but that was later, like an aftertaste when you can’t even remember the taste itself. It was thin, not quite real, and to chew on it too long was just self-indulgence, as bad as probing a loose tooth.

He glared at the southern night sky. This celestial arbiter was indifferent to everything but the punishment it would deliver. Cut sharp as a gem, five jade swords were swinging down.

Of course they weren’t all aiming at him. It just felt that way, on this steamy night with the river full of glinting eyes from those damned crocodiles-and they wanted him too. He’d heard from the barge hands about how they’d tip a boat if they could and then swarm the hapless victims, tearing them to pieces. He shivered.

‘There’s a glamour about you, Adjutant.’

Stormy looked up. ‘I’m a corporal, High Mage.’

‘And I’m a squad mage, aye.’

‘You was a squad mage, just like I was maybe once an Adjutant, but now you’re a High Mage and I’m a corporal.’

Quick Ben shrugged beneath his rain-cape, which he’d drawn tight. ‘At first I thought it was just the Slashes, giving you that glow. But then, I saw how it flickered-like flames under your skin, Stormy.’

‘You’re seeing things. Go scare someone else.’

‘Where’s Gesler?’

‘How should I know? On some other barge.’

‘Fires are burning on the Wastelands.’

Stormy started, scowled up at Quick Ben. ‘What’s that?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What was that you were saying? About fires?’

‘The ones under your skin?’

‘No, the Wastelands.’

‘No idea, Adjutant.’ Quick Ben turned away, strangely ghostly, and then wandered off.

Stormy stared after him, chewing at his lower lip, and from the whiskers there he tasted bits of stew. His stomach rumbled.

They weren’t on any official list, which meant no ink-stained clerk had a chance to break them up for this voyage. Sergeant Sunrise thrice-blessed the Errant for that. He lounged on a mass of spare bedrolls, feeling half-drunk with all this freedom. And the camaraderie. He already loved all the soldiers in this company, and the thought that it was a continuation of a famous Malazan company made him proud and eager to prove himself, and he knew he wasn’t alone in that.

Dead Hedge was the perfect commander, as far as he was concerned. A man brimming with enthusiasm and boundless energy. Happy to be back, Sunrise surmised. From that dead place where the dead went after they were dead. It had been a long walk, or so Hedge had said when he’d been cajoling them all on the long march to the river. ‘You think this is bad? Try walking on a plain of bones that stretches to the damned horizon! Try being chased by Deragoth’-whatever they were, they sounded bad-‘and stalked by an evil T’lan Imass!’ Sunrise wasn’t sure what T’lan Imass were either, but Hedge had said they were evil so he was glad never to have met one.

‘Death, dear soldiers, is just another warren. Any of you know what a warren is?… Gods, you might as well be living in mud huts! A warren, friends, is like a row of jugs on a shelf behind the bar. Pick one, pull the stopper, and drink. That’s what mages do. Drink too much and it kills you. But just enough and you can use it to do magic. It’s fuel, but each jug is different-tastes different, does different magic. Now, there’s a few out there, like our High Mage, who can drink from ’em all, but that’s because he’s insane.’

Sunrise wondered where that bar was, because he’d like to try some of those jugs. But he was afraid to ask. You probably needed special permission to get in there. Of course, drinking always caused him trouble, so maybe it was just as well that the Warrens Bar was in some city in faraway Malaz. Besides, it’d be crowded with mages, and mages made Sunrise nervous. Especially High Mage Quick Ben, who seemed to be mad at Dead Hedge for some reason. Mad? More like furious. But Dead Hedge just laughed it off, because nothing could put him in a bad mood for very long.

Corporal Rumjugs waddled into view, sighing heavily as she seated herself on a bale. ‘What a workout! You’d think these soldiers never before held a decent woman.’

‘A good night then?’ Sunrise asked.

‘My money purse is bulging, Sunny, and I’m leaking every which way.’

She’d lost some weight, just like her friend, Sweetlard. That march had almost done them both in. But they were still big, big in that way of swallowing a man up and it sure seemed there were lots of men who liked that just fine. For himself, he preferred to make out a bit more of an actual body under all that fat. Another few months of marching and they’d be perfect.

‘I’m going to start charging them ones who like to watch, too. Why should that be free?’

‘You’re right in that, Rumjugs. Ain’t nothing should be for free. But that’s where us Letherii are different from the Malazans. We see the truth of that and it’s no problem. Malazans, they just complain.’

‘Worse is all the marriage offers I’m getting. They don’t want me to stop working, those ones, they just want to be married to me. Open-minded, I’ll grant you that. With Malazans, pretty much anything goes. It’s no wonder they conquered half the world.’

Sweetlard joined them from the other side of the deck. ‘Errant’s shrivelled cock, I can barely walk!’

‘Rest the slabs, sweetie,’ Rumjugs offered, waving a plump hand at a nearby bale close to the lantern.

‘Where’s Nose Stream?’ Sweetlard asked. ‘I’d heard he was going to talk to the Boss. About us trying some of them new missions-’

‘Munitions,’ corrected Rumjugs.

‘Right, munitions. I mean, that sword I got, what am I supposed to do with it? I was collared to clear an overgrown lot once when I was little, and I took one look at them machetes and I threw up all over the Penal Mistress. Sharp edges give me the shakes-I got too much that looks too easy to cut, if you know what I mean.’

‘We can’t do nothing with the ones Bavedict’s made up,’ said Sunrise. ‘Not until we’re off these barges. And even then, we got to work in secret. Boss doesn’t want anybody else knowing anything about them, you see?’

‘But why?’ Sweetlard demanded.

‘Cos, love,’ drawled Rumjugs, ‘there’s other sappers, right? In the Bonehunters. They see what Bavedict’s come up with and everyone will want ’em, and before you know it, all the powders and potions are used up and we got us nothing.’

‘The greedy bastards!’

‘So make sure you say nothing, right? Even when you’re working, I mean.’

‘I hear you, Rummy Cups. No worries in that regard-I can’t get a word in with all the marriage proposals.’

‘You too? Why’s they all so desperate, I wonder?’

‘Children,’ said Sunrise. ‘They want children and they want ’em quick.’

‘Why would they all want that?’ Sweetlard asked.

The only answer that came to Sunrise was a grim one, and he hesitated.

After a moment Rumjugs gusted out a loud sigh. ‘Errant’s balls. They’re all expectin’ to die.’

‘Not the best attitude,’ mused Sweetlard, as she pulled out a leaf stick and leaned in to the lantern slung close to her left shoulder. Once the end was smouldering, she drew it to a bright coal and then settled back. ‘Spirits below, I’m chafing.’

‘When did you last have a drink?’ Rumjugs asked her.

‘Weeks now. You?’

‘Same. Funny how things kind of clear up.’

‘Funny, aye.’

Sunrise smiled to himself at hearing Sweetlard try out that Malazan way of talking. ‘Aye.’ It’s a good word, I think. More a whole attitude than a word, really. With lots of meaning in it, too. A bit of ‘yes’ and a bit of ‘well, fuck’ and maybe some ‘we’re all in this mess together’. So, a word to sum up the Malazans. He uttered his own sigh and settled his head back. ‘Aye,’ he said.

And the others nodded. He knew they did, and he didn’t even have to look.

We’re tightening up. Just like Dead Hedge said we would. Just like that, aye.

‘Idle hands, soldier. Take hold of that chest there and follow me.’

‘I got an idea about what you can t-take hold of, Master Sergeant, and you don’t n-need my help at all.’

Pores wheeled on the man. ‘Impudence? Insubordination? Mutiny?’

‘K-keep going, sir, and we can end on r-r-r-regicide.’

‘Well now,’ Pores said, advancing to stand in front of the solid, scowling bastard. ‘I didn’t take you for a mouthy one, Corporal. What squad and who’s your sergeant?’

The man’s right cheek bulged with something foul-the Malazans were picking up disgusting local habits-and he worked it for a moment before saying, ‘Eighth Legion, Ninth c-c-c-company, Fourth su-su-squad. Sergeant F-F-F-Fiddler. Corporal Tarr, na-na-na-not at your service, Master Sergeant.’

‘Think you got spine, Corporal?’

‘Spine? I’m a f-f-f-fucking tree, and you ain’t the wind to b-b-b-blow me down. Now, as you can s-s-s-see, I’m trying to wake up here, since I’m c-c-c-coming on my watch. You want some fool to t-t-tote your ill-gotten spoils, find someone else.’

‘What’s that in your mouth?’

‘Rylig, it’s c-c-c-called. D’ras. You use it to wake you up shuh-shuh-shuh-sharp.’

Pores studied the man’s now glittering eyes, the sudden cascade of jumpy twitches on his face. ‘You sure you’re supposed to chew the whole wad, Corporal?’

‘You m-may huh-huh-have a p-p-p-point theh-theh-there.’

‘Spit that ow-ow-out, Corporal, before your head explodes.’

‘Ccccandoat, Mas-Mas-mmmmfuckface. Spenspenspensive-’

The idiot was starting to pop like a seed on a hot rock. Pores took Tarr by the throat and forced him half over the rail. ‘Spit it out, you fool!’

He heard gagging, and then ragged coughing. The corporal’s knees gave out, and Pores pulled hard to keep the man upright. He stared a long moment into Tarr’s eyes. ‘Next time, Corporal, be sure to listen when the locals tell you how to use it, right?’

‘H-H-Hood’s B-B-Breath!’

Pores stepped back as Tarr straightened, the corporal’s head snapping round at every sound. ‘Go on, then, do your twenty rounds for every two your partner does. But before you do,’ he added, ‘why not carry that chest for me.’

‘Aye sir, easy, easy. Watch.’

Fools who messed up their own heads, Pores reflected, were the easiest marks of all. Might be worth buying an interest in this Rylig stuff.

The two half-blood D’ras hands lounged near the starboard tiller.

‘The whole load?’ one asked, eyes wide with disbelief.

‘The whole load,’ the other confirmed. ‘Just jammed it into his mouth and walked off.’

‘So where is he now?’

‘Probably bailing the barge with a tin cup. The leaks ain’t got a hope of keeping up.’

They both laughed.

They were still laughing when Corporal Tarr found them. Coming up from behind. One hand to each man’s belt. They wailed as they were yanked from their feet, and wailed a second time as they went over the stern rail. Loud splashes, followed by shrieking.

Clear to Tarr’s unnaturally bright vision, the V wakes of maybe a dozen crocodiles fast closing in. He’d forgotten about those things. Too bad. He’d think about it later.

The alarms rang for a time, big brass bells that soon slowed their frantic call and settled into something more like a mourning dirge, before echoing to silence once again.

Life on the river was a nasty business, nasty as nasty could get but that’s just how it was. The giant lizards were horrible enough with all those toothy jaws but then the local hands started talking about the river cows waiting downstream, not that river cows sounded particularly frightening as far as Tarr was concerned, even ones with huge tusks and pig eyes. He’d heard a score of confusing descriptions on his rounds, but only fragmentary ones, as he was quickly past and into the next bizarre, disjointed conversation, quick as breaths, quick as the blur of his boots drumming the deck. Vigilant patrol, aye, no time for lingering, no time for all that unimportant stuff. Walk the rail and walk the rail, round and round, and this was decent exercise but he should have worn his chain and kit bag and maybe his folding shovel, and double time might be required, just so he could get to know all these sudden faces jumping up in front of him, know them inside and out and their names, too, and whether they liked smoked fish and chilled beer or proper piss-warm ale and so many bare feet what if someone attacked right here and now? they’d all have nails stuck in their tender soles and he’d be all alone leading the charge but that’d be fine since he could kill anything right now, even bats because they weren’t so fast were they? not as fast as those little burning sparks racing everywhere into his brain and back out again and in one ear out the other two and look at this! Marching on his knees, it was easy! Good thing since he’d worn his legs down to stumps and now the deck was coming up fast to knock on his nose and see if anyone was home but was anyone home? only the bats-

‘He going to live?’ Badan Gruk asked.

‘Eh? Egit primbly so, lurky bhagger.’

‘Good. Keep him under those blankets-I never seen a man sweat like that, he’s bound to chill himself to the bone, and keep forcing water down him.’

‘Dentellit meen bazness, Sornt! Eenit known eeler, eh?’

‘Fine then, just make sure you heal him. Sergeant Fiddler will not be pleased to hear his corporal went and died in your care.’

‘Fabbler kint shit ding! Ee nair feered im!’

‘Really? Then you’re an idiot, Nep.’

Badan Gruk frowned down at Tarr. Some new fever to chase them down? He hoped not. It looked particularly unpleasant, reminding him of the shaking fever, only worse. This place had almost as many miserable diseases and parasites as in the jungles of Dal Hon.

Feeling nostalgic, the sergeant left Tarr to Nep Furrow’s ministrations. He would have been happier if he’d been on the same barge as Sinter, even Kisswhere. Corporal Ruffle was around, but she’d discovered a bones and trough game with a few heavies and was either heading for a sharp rise in her income or a serious beating. No matter what, she’d make enemies. Ruffle was like that.

He still didn’t know what to make of this army, these Bonehunters. He could find nothing-no detail-that made them what they were. What we are. I’m one of them now. There were no great glories in the history of these legions-he’d been in the midst of the conquest of Lether and it had been a sordid thing. When the tooth’s rotten right down to its root, it’s no feat to tug it out. Maybe it was a just war. Maybe it wasn’t. Did it make any difference? A soldier takes orders and a soldier fights. The enemy wore a thousand masks but they all turned out the same. Just people determined to stand in their way. This was supposed to be enough. Was it? He didn’t know.

Surrounded by foreigners, friendly or otherwise, settled a kind of pressure on every Malazan soldier here. Demanding a shape to this army, and yet something was resisting it, something within the Bonehunters, as if hidden forces pushed back against that pressure. We are and we aren’t, we will and we won’t. Are we just hollow at the core? Does it start and end with the Adjunct? That notion felt uncharitable. People were just restless, uneasy with all this not knowing.

Who was the enemy awaiting them? What sort of mask would they see this time?

Badan Gruk could not remember ever knowing a person who deliberately chose to do the wrong thing, the evil thing-no doubt such people existed, the ones who simply didn’t care, and ones who, for all he knew, enjoyed wearing the dark trappings of malice. Armies served and sometimes they served tyrants-bloodthirsty bastards-and they fought against decent, right-minded folk out of fear and in the interests of self-preservation, and out of greed, too, come to that. Did they see themselves as evil? How could they not? But then, how many campaigns could you fight, if you were in that army? How many before you started feeling sick inside? In your gut. In your head. When the momentum of all those conquests starts to falter, aye, what then?

Or when your tyrant Empress betrays you?

No one talked much about that, and yet Badan Gruk suspected it was the sliver of jagged iron lodged in the heart of the Bonehunters, and the bleeding never slowed. We did everything she asked of us. The Adjunct followed her orders and got it done. The rebellion crushed, the leaders dead or scattered. Seven Cities brought under the imperial heel once again. In the name of order and law and smiling merchants. But none of it mattered. The Empress twitched a finger and the spikes were readied for our heads.

Anger burned for only so long. Enough to cut a messy path through the Empire of Lether. And then it was done. That ‘then’ was now. What did they have to take anger’s place? We are to be Unwitnessed, she said. We must fight for each other and ourselves and no one else. We must fight for survival, but that cannot hold us together-it’s just as likely to tear us apart.

The Adjunct held to an irrational faith-in her soldiers, in their resolve. We’re a fragile army and there are enough reasons for that being true. That sliver needs to be pulled, the wound needs to knit.

We’re far from the Malazan Empire now, but we carry its name with us. It’s even what we call ourselves. Malazans. Gods below, there’s no way out of this, is there?

He turned away from the inky river carrying them along, scanned the huddled, sleeping forms of his fellow soldiers. Covering every available space on the deck, motionless as corpses.

Badan Gruk fought off a shiver and turned back to the river, where nothing could resist the current for long.

It was an old fancy, so old he’d almost forgotten it. A grandfather-it hardly mattered whether he’d been a real one or some old man who’d thrown on that hat for the duration of the memory-had taken him to the Malaz docks, where they’d spent a sunny afternoon fishing for collar-gills and blue-tube eels. ‘Take a care on keeping the bait small, lad. There’s a demon at the bottom of this harbour. Sometimes it gets hungry or maybe just annoyed. I heard of fishers snapped right off this dock, so keep the bait small and keep an eye on the water.’ Old men lived for stories like that. Putting the fright into wide-eyed runts who sat with their little legs dangling off the edge of the pier, runts with all the hopes children have and wasn’t that what fishing was all about?

Fiddler couldn’t remember if they’d caught anything that day. Hopes had a way of sinking fast once you stepped out of childhood. In any case, escaping this motley throng of soldiers, he’d scrounged a decent line and a catfish-spine hook. Using a sliver of salted bhederin for bait and a bent, holed coin buffed to flash, he trailed the line out behind the barge. There was always the chance of snagging something ugly, like one of those crocodiles, but he didn’t think it likely. He did, however, make a point of not dangling his legs over the edge. Wrong bait.

Balm wandered up after a time and sat down beside him. ‘Catch anything?’

‘Make one of two guesses and you’ll be there,’ Fiddler replied.

‘Funny though, Fid, seen plenty jumping earlier.’

‘That was dusk-tomorrow round that time I’ll float something looking like a fly. Find any of your squad?’

‘No, not one. Feels like someone cut off my fingers. I’m actually looking forward to getting back on land.’

‘You always were a lousy marine, Balm.’

The Dal Honese nodded. ‘And a worse soldier.’

‘Now I didn’t say-’

‘Oh but I am. I lose myself. I get confused.’

‘You just need pointing in the right direction, and then you’re fine, Balm. A mean scrapper, in fact.’

‘Aye, fighting my way clear of all that fug. You was always lucky, Fid. You got that cold iron that makes thinking fast and clear easy for you. I ain’t neither hot or cold, you see. I’m more like lead or something.’

‘No one in your squad has ever complained, Balm.’

‘Well, I like them and all, but I can’t say that they’re the smartest people I know.’

‘Throatslitter? Deadsmell? They seem to have plenty of wits.’

‘Wits, aye. Smart, no. I remember when I was a young boy. In the village there was another boy, about my age. Was always smiling, even when there was nothing to smile about. And always getting into trouble-couldn’t keep his nose out of anything. Some of the older boys would pick on him-I saw him punched in the face once, and he stood there bleeding, that damned smile on his face. Anyway, one day he stuck his nose into the wrong thing-no one ever talked about what it was, but we found that boy lying dead behind a hut. Every bone broken. And on his face, all speckled in blood, there was that smile.’

‘Ever see a caged ape, Balm? You must have. That smile you kept seeing was fear.’

‘I know it now, Fid, you don’t need to tell me. The point is, Throatslitter and Deadsmell, they make me think of that boy, the way he always got into things he shouldn’t have. Wits enough to be curious, not smart enough to be cautious.’

Fiddler grunted. ‘I’m trying to think of any soldier in my squad who fits that description. It occurs to me that wits might be hard to find among ’em, barring maybe Bottle-but he’s smart enough to keep his head down. I think. So far, anyway. As for the rest of them, they like it simple and if it ain’t simple, why, they just get mad and break something.’

‘You got yourself a good squad there, Fid.’

‘They’ll do.’

A sudden tug. He began hitching the line back in. ‘Not much of a fight, can’t be very big.’ Moments later he drew the hook into view. They stared down at a fish not much bigger than the bait, but it had lots of teeth.

Balm snorted. ‘Look, it’s smiling!’

It was late and Brys Beddict was ready for bed, but the aide’s face was set, as if the young man had already weathered a tirade. ‘Very well, send her in.’

The aide bowed and backed away with evident relief, turning smartly at the silk curtain, slipping past to make his way to the outer midship deck. A short time later Brys heard boots thumping from bare boards to the rug-strewn corridor leading to his private chamber. Sighing, he rose from his camp chair and adjusted his cloak.

Atri-Ceda Aranict edged aside the curtain and stepped within. She was tall, somewhere in her late thirties, though the deep creases framing her mouth-from a lifetime of rustleaf-made her look older; although something about those lines suited her well. Her sun-faded brown hair was straight and hung loose, down to either side of her breasts. The uniform of her rank seemed an ill fit, as if she was yet to become accustomed to this new career. Bugg had found her in the most recent troll for potential cedas. She had been employed as a midwife in a household in the city of Trate, which had suffered terribly at the beginning of the Edur invasion. Her greatest talents were in healing, although Bugg had assured Brys that she possessed the potential for other magics.

To date, his impression of her was as a singularly dour and uncommunicative woman, so despite the lateness he found himself regarding her with genuine interest. ‘Atri-Ceda, what is it that is so urgent?’

She seemed momentarily at a loss, as if she had not expected to succeed in receiving this audience. She met his eyes in the briefest flicker, which seemed to fluster her even more, and then she cleared her throat. ‘Commander, it is best-I mean, you need to see for yourself. Will you permit me, sir?’

Bemused, Brys nodded.

‘I have been exploring the warrens-the Malazan way of sorcery. It’s so much more… elegant.’ As she was speaking she was rummaging inside the small leather pouch tied to her belt. She withdrew her hand and opened it, revealing a small amount of grainy dirt. ‘Do you see, sir?’

Brys tilted forward. ‘That would be dirt, Aranict?’

A quick frown of irritation that delighted him. ‘Look more carefully, sir.’

He did. Watching it settle, and then settle some more-no, the soil was in motion. ‘You have ensorcelled this handful of earth? Er, well done, Atri-Ceda.’

The woman snorted, and then her breath caught. ‘My apologies, Commander. It’s obvious I’ve not explained myself-’

‘As of yet you’ve not explained anything.’

‘Sorry sir. I thought, if I didn’t show you, you’d have no reason to believe me-’

‘Aranict, you are my Atri-Ceda. You would not serve me well if I viewed you with scepticism. Please, go on, and please relax-I did not mean to sound impatient. In truth, this restless soil is most remarkable.’

‘No sir, not in itself. Any Malazan mage could manage this with barely the twitch of a finger. The fact is, I’m not the source of this.’

‘Oh, then who is?’

‘I don’t know. Before we boarded, sir, I was standing down at the water’s edge-there’d been a hatching of watersnakes, and I was watching the little ones slither into the reeds-creatures interest me, sir. And I noticed something in the mud where the serpents had crawled. Parts of it were moving, shifting about, as you see here. Naturally, I suspected that some insect or mollusc was beneath the surface, so I probed-’

‘Bare-handed? Was that wise?’

‘Probably not, as the whole bank was full of mud-urchins, but I could see that this was different. In any case, sir, I found nothing. But the mud in my hand fairly seethed, as if it possessed a life of its own.’

Brys peered at the dirt cupped in her palm once more. ‘And is this the offending material?’

‘Yes, sir. And that’s where the Malazan warrens come into this. It’s called sympathetic linkage. Rather, with this bit of dirt, I can find others just like it.’

‘Along the river?’

Her eyes met his again, and once more they flitted away-and with a start Brys realized that Aranict was shy. The notion endeared her to him and he felt a wave of sympathy, warm as a caress. ‘Sir, it started there-since I’m new to working this kind of magic-but then it spread, inland, and I could sense the places of its greatest manifestation-this swarming power in the ground, I mean. In mud, in sands, the range, sir, is vast. But where you’ll find more than anywhere else, Commander, is in the Wastelands.’

‘I see. What, do you think, do these modest disturbances signify?’

‘That something’s just beginning, sir. But, I need to talk to some Malazan mages-they know so much more than I do. They can take it farther than I have managed.’

‘Atri-Ceda, you have only begun your explorations of the Malazan warrens, and yet you have extended your sensitivity all the way to the Wastelands. I see now why the Ceda held you in such high regard. However, come the morning we shall send you in a launch to a Malazan barge.’

‘Perhaps the one where Ebron will be found, or Widdershins-’

‘Squad mages? No, Atri-Ceda. Like it or not, you are my equivalent of High Mage. Accordingly, your appropriate contact among the Bonehunters is their High Mage, Adaephon Ben Delat.’

All colour drained from her face. Her knees buckled.

Brys had to move quickly to take her weight as she slumped in a dead faint. ‘Granthos! Get me a healer!’

He heard some muffled response in reply from the outer chamber.

The dirt had scattered on to the rug and Brys caught motion from the corner of his eye. It was gathering together, forming a roiling heap. He thought he could almost make out shapes within it, before everything fell away, only to re-form once more.

She was heavier than he’d expected. He looked down at her face, the parted lips, and then away again. ‘Granthos! Where in the Errant’s name are you?’