Only once had Mappo seen all the fragments laid out together, hinting at a beast twice the mass of a plains bear, the upper and lower jaws both sporting a row of fangs that roughly interlocked. The thigh bone—which he now held in his hands—had the shape of a bird's, yet impossibly huge and twice as thick as the hollow shaft it surrounded. Ridges appeared here and there along the shaft, where what must have been massive muscles were attached.
His hands trembled beneath the burden of the weapon.
Icarium spoke behind him. 'I do not recall you ever using that, friend.'
Unwilling as yet to turn to the Jhag, Mappo closed his eyes. 'No.' You do not.
'I am continually astonished,' Icarium went on, 'at just how much you manage to fit into that tattered sack.'
Another trick of the Clan witches—this small, private warren beyond thedrawstrings. Should never have lasted this long. They said a month, maybe two. Not centuries. His gaze fell again to the weapon in his hands. There was power in these bones to start with—the witches simply did some enhancements, spells of binding to keep the parts together and such. Perhaps the bone feeds the warren in the sack somehow … or the handful of irritating people I've stuffed inside in my own fits of ill temper. Wonder where they all went… He sighed and rewrapped the weapon, returned it to the sack and cinched tight the drawstrings. Then he straightened, turning to offer Icarium a smile.
The Jhag had collected his own weapons. 'It seems our journey to find Tremorlor shall have to wait a while longer,' he said, shrugging. 'Apsalar has set off in pursuit of her father.'
'And thus will be led to the place where Sha'ik's body awaits.'
'We are to go after her,' Icarium said. 'Perhaps we can circumvent Iskaral Pust's intentions.'
'Not just Pust, it seems, but the Whirlwind goddess—who may well have shaped this from the very start.'
The Jhag frowned.
Mappo sighed again. 'Think on it, friend. Sha'ik was anointed as the Seeress of the Apocalypse almost as soon as she was born. Forty or more years in Raraku, preparing for this year… Raraku is not a kind place, and four decades will wear down even a chosen one. Perhaps preparation was all the Seeress was meant to achieve—the war itself requires new blood.'
'Yet did not the soldier say that Cotillion's relinquishing of the lass was forced upon him by the threat of Anomander Rake? The possession was meant to last much longer, taking the lass ever closer to the Empress herself…'
'So everyone assumes,' Mappo said. 'Iskaral Pust is a High Priest of Shadow. I think it best to assume that no matter how devious Pust is, Shadowthrone and Cotillion are more devious. By far. A truly possessed Apsalar would never get close to Laseen—the Claws would sniff it out, not to mention the Adjunct and her Otataral sword. But an Apsalar no longer possessed… well… and Cotillion's made sure she's not just a simple fishergirl any more, hasn't he?'
'A scheme within a scheme. Have you discussed this with Fiddler?'
Mappo shook his head. 'I may be wrong. It may be that the Rulers of Shadow simply saw an opportunity here, a means to take advantage of the convergence—the dagger is honed, then slipped in amidst the tumult. I have been wondering why Apsalar's memories are returning so swiftly… and so painlessly.'
'And we have no role in this?'
'That I do not know.'
'Apsalar becomes Sha'ik. Sha'ik defeats the Malazan armies, liberates the Seven Cities. Laseen, forced to take charge herself, arrives with an army to reconquer the unruly citizens of this land.'
'Armed with Cotillion's skill and knowledge, Sha'ik kills Laseen. End of Empire—'
'End?' Icarium's brows rose. 'More likely a new Emperor or Empress with Shadow the patron gods…'
Mappo grunted. 'A worrying thought.'
'Why?'
The Trell scowled. 'I had a sudden vision of Emperor Iskaral Pust…' He shook himself, lifted the sack and swung it over a shoulder. 'For the moment, I think it best we keep this conversation to ourselves, friend.'
Icarium nodded. He hesitated, then said, 'I have one question, Mappo.'
'Aye?'
'I feel closer to discovering… who I am… than ever before. Tremorlor is said to be time-aspected—'
'Aye, so it's said, though what that means is anyone's guess.'
'Answers, I believe. For me. For my life.'
'What do you ask, Icarium?'
'Should I discover my past, Mappo, how will that change me?'
'You are asking me? Why?'
Icarium's gaze was half-lidded as he smiled at Mappo. 'Because, friend, within you reside my memories—none of which you are prepared to reveal.'
And so we come to this point… again. 'Who you are, Icarium, is not dependent on me, nor on my memories. What value would it be to seek to become my version of you? I accompany you, friend, in your quest. If the truth—if your truth—is to be found, then you shall find it.'
Icarium was nodding, past echoes of this conversation returning to him—but little else, by the Ancients, little else, please—'Yet something tells me that you, Mappo, are a part of that hidden truth.'
Ice filled the Trell's heart. He's not taken it that far before—is Tremorlor's proximity nudging open the locked gate? 'Then, when the time comes, you shall face a decision.'
'I think I shall.'
They studied each other, their eyes searching the altered reflection before them, one set plagued with innocent questing, the other disguising devastating knowledge. And between us, hanging in the balance, a friendship neither understands.
Icarium reached out and clasped Mappo's shoulder. 'We should join the others.'
Fiddler sat astride the Gral gelding as they waited at the base of the cliff. Bhok'arala scampered along the temple face, squealing and barking as they struggled with the lowering of the mule packs and assorted supplies. One had got its tail snagged in the rope and screamed pitifully as it slowly descended with the gear. Iskaral Pust hung half out of the tower window, throwing rocks at the hapless creature—none of which came close.
The sapper eyed Mappo and Icarium, sensing a new tension between them, though they continued to work together with familiar ease. The tension was in the words unspoken between the two, Fiddler suspected. Changes are coming to us all, it seems. He glanced over at Crokus, who sat rigid with barely restrained impatience on the spare mount he had inherited. He'd caught the lad running through a gamut of close-in knife-fighting moves a short while earlier. The few times the sapper had seen him use the knives before there'd been a kind of desperation marring his technique. Crokus had some skill but he lacked maturity—he was too conscious of himself behind the blades. That had changed, Fiddler realized as he watched the lad go through his routine. Taking cuts was essential to delivering killing thrusts. Knife-fighting was a messy business. Cold determination backed Crokus now—he would do more than just hold his own from now on, the sapper knew. Nor would he be so quick to throw his knives, unless he had plenty of spares tucked within easy reach in the folds of his telaba. Now more likely, I'd hazard.
The late-afternoon sky was hazy ochre, filled with the suspended residue of the Whirlwind, which still raged in the heart of Raraku no more than ten leagues distant. The heat was made even more oppressive by that suffocating cloak.
Mappo freed the snared bhok'aral, earning a nasty bite on the wrist for his kindness. The creature half scampered, half flew back up the cliff face, voicing an abusive torrent as it went.
Fiddler called out to the Trell. 'Set us a pace, then!'
Mappo nodded and he and Icarium set off down the trail.
The sapper was glad he was the only one to glance back to see a score of bhok'arala on the cliff face waving farewell, with Iskaral Pust almost falling from the window in his efforts to sweep the nearest creatures from the tower's stone wall with his broom.
The renegade Korbolo Dom's army of the Apocalypse was spread over the rumpled carpet of grassy hills that marked the south edge of the plain. On each hilltop stood command tents and the r
aised banners of various tribes and self-proclaimed battalions. Between small towns of tents and wagons roamed vast herds of cattle and horses.
The encampment's pickets were marked by three ragged rows of crucified prisoners. Kites and rhizan and capemoths swarmed around each victim.
The outermost line rose above the earthworks and trench less than fifty paces away from Kalam's position. He lay flat in the high yellow grasses, the heat of the parched ground rising up around him with a smell of dust and sage. Insects crawled over him, their prickling feet tracking aimless paths across his hands and forearms. The assassin ignored them, his eyes on the nearest of the crucified victims.
A young Malazan lad of no more than twelve or thirteen. Capemoths rode his arms from shoulder to wrist, making them look like wings. Rhizan gathered in writhing clumps at his hands and feet, where the spikes had been driven through bones and flesh. The boy had no eyes, no nose—his face was a ravaged wound—yet he still lived.
The image was etching itself into Kalam's heart like acid into bronze. His limbs felt cold, as if his own claim to life was withdrawing, pooling in his gut. I cannot save him. I cannot even kill him in swift mercy. Not this lad, not a single one of these hundreds of Malazans surrounding this army. I can do nothing.
The knowledge was a whisper of madness. The assassin feared but one thing that left him skeined with terror: helplessness. But not the helplessness of being a prisoner, or of undergoing torture—he'd been victim to both, and he well knew that torture could break anyone—anyone at all. But this… Kalam feared insignificance, he feared the inability to produce an effect, to force a change upon the world beyond his flesh.
It was this knowledge that the scene before him was searing into his soul. I can do nothing. Nothing. He stared across the intervening fifty paces into the young man's sightless sockets, the distance between diminishing with every breath, until he felt close enough to brush his lips against the boy's sun-cracked forehead. To whisper lies—your death won't be forgotten, the truth of your precious life which you still refuse to surrender because it's all you have. You are not alone, child—lies. The lad was alone. Alone with his withering, collapsing life. And when the body became a corpse, when it rotted and fell away to join all those others ringing a place that had once held an army, he would be forgotten. Another faceless victim. One in a number that beggared comprehension.
The Empire would exact revenge—if it was able—and the numbers would grow. The Imperial threat was ever thus: The destruction you wreak upon us and our kind, we deliver back to you tenfold. If Kalam succeeded in killing Laseen, then perhaps he would also succeed in guiding to the throne someone with spine enough to avoid ruling from a position of crisis. The assassin and Quick Ben had someone in mind for that. If all goes as planned. But for these, it was too late.
He let out a slow breath, only now realizing he was lying on an ants' nest and its inhabitants were telling him to leave in no uncertain terms. I lie with the weight of a god on their world, and these ants don't like it. We're so much more alike than most would think.
Kalam edged back through the grasses. Not the first scene of horror I've witnessed, after all. A soldier learns to wear every kind of armour, and so long as he stays in the trade, it works well enough. Gods, I don't think my sanity would survive peace!
With that chilling thought seeping like weakness into his limbs, Kalam reached the back slope, out of the victims' line of sight. He scanned the area, seeking sign of Apt's presence, but the demon seemed to have vanished. After a moment he rose into a crouch and padded back to the aspen grove where the others waited.
Minala rose from cover as he approached the low brush encircling the silver-leafed trees, crossbow in her hands.
Kalam shook his head. In silence they both slipped between the spindly boles and rejoined the group.
Keneb had succumbed to yet another bout of fever. His wife, Selv, hovered over him in tight-lipped fear that seemed on the edge of panic, holding a water-soaked cloth to Keneb's forehead and murmuring in an effort to still his thrashing and twitching. The children, Vaneb and Kesen, stood nearby, studiously attending to their horses.
'How bad is it?' Minala asked, carefully uncocking the crossbow.
Kalam was preoccupied with plucking and brushing ants from his body for a moment, then he sighed. 'We'll not get around them. I saw standards from the west tribes—those camps are still growing, meaning the Odhan to the west won't be empty. Eastward we'd run into villages and towns, all liberated and occupied by garrisons. That whole horizon is nothing but smoke.'
'If it was just you you'd get through,' Minala said, reaching up to brush her black hair from her face. Her light-grey eyes held hard on him. 'Just another soldier of the Apocalypse, it would be a simple task to take picket duty on the south edge, then slip away one night.'
Kalam grunted. 'Not as easy as you think. There're mages in that encampment.' And I've held the Book in my hands—not likely I'd stay anonymous—
'What difference would that make?' Minala asked. 'Maybe you've got a reputation, but you're no Ascendant.'
The assassin shrugged. He straightened, retrieved his pack, set it down and began rummaging through its contents.
'You haven't answered me, Corporal,' Minala continued, watching him. 'Why all this self-importance? You're not the type to delude yourself, so you must be holding something back from us. Some other… significant detail about yourself.'
'Sorcery,' Kalam muttered, pulling free a small object from the pack. 'Not mine. Quick Ben's.' He held up the object and quirked a wry grin.
'A rock.'
'Aye. Granted, it'd be more dramatic if it was a faceted gem or a torc of gold. But there's not a mage in this world stupid enough to invest power in a valuable object. After all, who'd steal a rock?"
'I've heard legends otherwise—
'Oh, you'll find magic embedded in jewels and such—sorcerers make up dozens of them, all cursed in some way or other. Most of them are a kind of magical spying device—the sorcerer can track them, sometimes even see through them. Claws use that intelligence-gathering method all the time.' He tossed the rock in the air, caught it, then suddenly sobered. 'This was intended to be used as a last resort…" In the palace at Unta, actually.
'What does it do?'
The assassin grimaced. I haven't a clue. Quick Ben's not the expansive type, the bastard. 'It's your shaved knuckle in the hole, Kalam. With this you can stride right into the throne room. I guarantee it.' He glanced around, saw a low, flat rock nearby. 'Get everyone ready to move.'
The assassin crouched down before the flat rock, set the stone on it, then found a fist-sized cobble. He hefted it thoughtfully before bringing it crashing down on the stone.
He was shocked as it splattered like wet clay.
Darkness swept over them. Kalam looked up, slowly straightened. Damn, I should've guessed.
'Where are we?' Selv demanded in a high, taut voice.
'Mother!'
The assassin turned to see Kesen and Vaneb stumbling in knee-deep ash. Ash that was filled with charred bones. The horses were shying, tossing their heads as grey dust rose like smoke.
Hood's breath, we're in the Imperial Warren! Kalam found himself standing on a broad, raised disc of grey basalt. Sky merged with land in a formless, colourless haze. I could wring your neck, Quick Ben! The assassin had heard rumours that such a warren had been created and the description matched, but the tales he'd picked up on Genabackis suggested that it was barely nascent, extending no more than a few hundred leagues—if leagues mean much here—in a ring around Unta. Instead, it reaches all the way into Seven Cities. And Genabackis? Why not? Quick Ben, there could be a Claw riding your shoulder right now…
The children had settled their horses and were now in the saddles, well away from the grisly scorched mound. Kalam glanced over to see Minala and Selv tying Keneb onto his saddle.
The assassin approached his own stallion. The beast snorted disdainfully as he swung himself
up and gathered the reins.
'We're in a warren, aren't we?' Minala asked. 'I'd always believed all those tales of other realms were nothing but elaborate inventions wizards and priests used to prop up all the fumbling around they did.'
Kalam grunted. He'd been run through enough warrens and plunged into enough chaotic maelstroms of sorcery to take it for granted. Minala had just reminded him that for most people such a reality was remote, viewed with scepticism if acknowledged at all. Is such ignorance a comfort or a source of blind fear?
'I take it we're safe from Korbolo Dom here?'
'I certainly hope so,' the assassin muttered.
'How do we select a direction? There're no landmarks, no trail…'
'Quick Ben says you travel with an intention in mind and the warren will take you there.'
'And the destination you have in mind?'
Kalam scowled, was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed. 'Aren.'
'How safe are we?'
Safe? We've stepped into a hornets' nest. 'We'll see.'
'Oh, that's a comfort!' Minala snapped.
The image of the crucified Malazan boy rose once again in the assassin's thoughts. He glanced over at Keneb's children. 'Better this risk than a… different certainty,' he muttered.
'Are you going to explain that comment?'
Kalam shook his head. 'Enough talk. I've a city to visualize…'
Lostara Yil walked her mount up to the gaping hole, understanding at once that, although she had never seen one before, this was a portalway into another warren. Its edges had begun fading, like a wound closing.
She hesitated. The assassin had chosen a short-cut, a means of slipping past the traitor's army between him and Aren. The Red Blade knew she had no choice but to follow, for the trail would prove far too cold should she manage the long way to Aren. Even getting through Korbolo Dom's forces would likely prove impossible—as a Red Blade she was bound to be recognized, even wearing unmarked armour as she did now.