Deadhouse Gates

  'We are safe!' Nawahl cried, his face dark with fury. 'It shall not succeed, no matter how stubborn! But still, how shall we sleep in such racket!"

  Kulp strode up to the merchant, who unaccountably backed away a step. The mage then turned to face the determined intruder. 'That's a Soletaken,' he said. 'Very strong—'

  From where Felisin sat, all that followed appeared in a seam-less flow, with something close to grace. As soon as Kulp swung his back to the merchant, Nawahl seemed to blur beneath his silks, his skin deepening into glistening black fur. Sharp spice overpowered the citrus perfume in a hot gust. Rats poured forth, a growing flood.

  Heboric screamed a warning, but it was already too late.

  The rats flowed over Kulp and swallowed him entirely in a seething cloak, not by the score but in the hundreds.

  The mage's shriek was a dull muffle. A moment later the mound of creatures seemed to buckle, their weight crushing Kulp down.

  The four bearers stood off to one side, watching.

  Heboric plunged into the mass of rats, his ghost-hands now glowing gauntlets of fire, one jade green, the other rust-red. Rats flinched away. Each one he grasped burned into black, mangled flesh and bone. Yet the swarm spread outward, more and more of the silent creatures, clambering over one another, heaving in waves over the ground.

  They dissipated from the place where Kulp had lain. Felisin saw the flash of wet bones, a ragged raincape. She could not comprehend its significance.

  The Soletaken beyond the wards was attacking the barrier in a frenzy. The torn wounds were slower in closing. A bear's paw and forearm, as wide around as Felisin's waist, plunged through a rent.

  The rats rose in a writhing crest to sweep down on Heboric. Still screaming, the ex-priest staggered back.

  A hand clutched Felisin's collar from behind and yanked her upright. 'Grab him and run, lass.'

  Head spinning, she twisted around, to find herself staring up into Baudin's weathered face. He held in his other hand four of the lanterns. 'Get moving, damn you!' He pushed her hard towards the ex-priest, who was still stumbling back, the tide seething in pursuit. Behind Heboric, two tons of bear was pushing through the barrier.

  Baudin leapt past Heboric, smashing one of the lanterns against the ground. Lamp oil sprayed in gushing streaks of flame.

  A furious scream erupted from the rats.

  The four servants broke into hacking laughter.

  The crest crashed over Baudin, but they could not drag him down as they had Kulp. He swung the lanterns, shattering them. Fire leapt around him. A moment later he and hundreds of rats were engulfed in flames.

  Felisin reached Heboric. The old man was sheathed in blood from countless small wounds. His sightless eyes seemed focused on an inner horror that matched the scene before them. Grasping an arm, she pulled him to one side.

  The merchant's voice filled her mind. Do not fear for yourself, my dear. Wealth and peace, every indulgence to sate your desires, and I am gentle—to those I choose, oh so gentle…

  She hesitated.

  Leave to me this hard-skinned stranger and the old man, then I shall deal with Messremb, that foul, most rude Soletaken who so dislikes me…

  Yet she heard pain in his words, an edge of desperation. The Soletaken was sundering the barrier, its hungry roar deafening in its reverberations.

  Baudin would not fall. He killed rat after rat, all within a shroud of flame, yet they surged over him in ever-growing numbers, the sheer mass of bodies smothering the burning oil.

  Felisin glanced at the Soletaken, gauging its awesome power, its fearless rage. She shook her head. 'No. You're in trouble, D'ivers.' She took hold of Heboric once again and dragged him to the dying barrier.

  My dear! Wait! Oh, you stubborn mortal, why won't you die!

  Felisin could not help but grin. That won't work—I should know.

  The Whirlwind had begun its own assault against the sphere. Wind-whipped sand rasped against her face.

  'Wait!' Heboric gasped. 'Kulp—'

  Cold gripped Felisin. He's dead, oh, gods, he's dead! Devoured. And I watched, drunk and uncaring, noticing nothing—'one thing at a time.' Kulp's dead. She bit back a sob, pushed the ex-priest into, then through, the barrier, even as it finally collapsed. The Soletaken's roar of triumph announced its surging charge into the midst of the rats. Felisin did not turn to watch the attack, did not turn to discover Baudin's fate. Dragging Heboric, she ran into the dusk-darkened storm.

  They did not get far. The sandstorm's fury battered them, pushed them, finally drove them into the frail shelter offered by an overhanging spur of rock. They collapsed at its base, huddling together, awaiting death.

  The alcohol in Felisin pulled her down into sleep. She thought to resist it, then surrendered, telling herself that the horror would soon find them, and to witness her own death offered no comfort. I should tell Heboric the true worth of knowledge now. Yet he will claim that himself. Not long. Not long at all…

  She awoke to silence, but no, not silence. Someone nearby was weeping. Felisin opened her eyes. The Whirlwind's storm had ceased. The sky overhead was a golden shroud of suspended dust. It was so thick on all sides that she could see no more than half a dozen paces. Yet the air was still. Gods, the D'ivers is back—but no, the calm was everywhere.

  Head aching and mouth painfully dry, she sat up.

  Heboric knelt a few paces away, vague behind a refulgent haze. Invisible hands were pressed against his face, pulling the skin into bizarre folds, as if he was wearing a grotesque mask. His whole body heaved with grief and he rocked back and forth with dull, senseless repetition.

  Memory flooded Felisin. Kulp. She felt her own face twisting. 'He should have sensed something,' she croaked.

  Heboric's head shot up, his sightless eyes red and hooded as they fixed on her. 'What?'

  'The mage,' she snapped, wrapping herself in a frail hug. The bastard was a D'ivers. He should have known!'

  'Gods, girl, would that I had your armour!'

  And should I bleed within it, you see nothing, old man. No-one shall see. No-one shall know.

  'If I had,' Heboric continued after a moment, 'I would be able to stay at your side, to offer what protection I could—though wondering why I bothered, granted. Yet I would.'

  'What are you babbling about?'

  'I am fevered. The D'ivers has poisoned me, lass. And it wars with the other strangers in my soul—I do not know if I shall survive this, Felisin.'

  She barely heard him. Her attention had been pulled away by a scuffing sound. Someone was approaching, haltingly, a stagger and a scrape of pebbles. Felisin pushed herself to her feet to face the sound.

  Heboric fell silent, his head cocked.

  The figure that emerged from the ochre mist sank talons into her sanity. She heard a whimper from her own throat.

  Baudin was burned, gnawed, parts completely eaten away. He had been charred down to the bone in places, and the heat had swelled the gases in his belly, bloating him until he looked with child, the skin and flesh cracked open. There was nothing left of his features except ragged holes where his eyes, nose and mouth should have been. Yet Felisin knew it was him.

  He staggered another step closer, then slowly sank down to the ground.

  'What is it?' Heboric demanded in a hiss. 'This time I am truly blind—who has come?'

  'No-one,' Felisin said after a long moment. She walked slowly to the thing that had once been Baudin. She sank down into the warm sand, reached out and lifted his head, cradled it on her thighs.

  He was aware of her, reaching up an encrusted, fused hand to hover a moment near her elbow before falling back. He spoke, each word like rope on rock. 'I thought… the fire… immune.'

  'You were wrong,' she whispered, an image of armour within her suddenly cracking, fissures spreading. And beneath it, behind it, something was building.

  'My vow.'

  'Your vow.'

  'Your sister…"

  'Tavore.'

/>   'She—'

  'Don't. No, Baudin. Say nothing of her.'

  He drew a ragged breath. 'You…"

  Felisin waited, hoping the life would flee this husk, flee it now, before—

  'You… were… not what I expected…'

  Armour can hide anything until the moment it falls away. Even a child. Especially a child.

  There was nothing to distinguish sky from earth. Gold stillness had embraced the world. Stones pattered down the trail as Fiddler pulled himself onto the crest, the clatter appallingly loud to his ears. She's drawn breath. And waits.

  He wiped sweaty dust from his brow. Hood's breath, this bodes ill.

  Mappo emerged from the haze ahead. The huge Trell's exhaustion made his walk more of a shamble than usual. His eyes were red-rimmed, the lines that bracketed his prominent canines were deeply etched into his weathered skin. 'The trail winds ever onward,' he said, crouching beside the sapper. 'I believe she's with her father now—they walk together. Fiddler…' He hesitated.

  'Aye. The Whirlwind goddess…'

  'There is… expectancy… in the air.'

  Fiddler grunted at the understatement.

  'Well,' Mappo sighed after a moment, 'let us join the others.'

  Icarium had found a flat stretch of rock surrounded by large boulders. Crokus sat with his back against stone, watching the Jhag laying out foodstuffs in the centre. The expression the young Daru swung to the sapper when he arrived belonged to a much older man. 'She's not turning back,' Crokus said.

  Fiddler said nothing, unslinging his crossbow and setting it down.

  Icarium cleared his throat. 'Come and eat, lad,' he said. 'The realms are overlapping, and all is possible… including the unexpected. Distress over what has not yet happened avails you nothing. In the meantime, the body demands sustenance, and it will do none of us good if you've no reserves of energy when comes the time to act.'

  'It's already too late,' Crokus muttered, but he clambered to his feet nonetheless.

  'There is too much mystery in this path to be certain of anything,' Icarium replied. Twice we have travelled warrens—their aspects I cannot say. They felt ancient and fragmented, woven into the very rock of Raraku. At one point I smelled the sea…'

  'As did I,' Mappo said, shrugging his broad shoulders.

  'More and more,' Crokus said, 'her journey takes a tack where such things as rebirth become more probable. I am right in that, aren't I?'

  'Perhaps,' Icarium conceded. 'Yet, this pensive air hints at uncertainty as well, Crokus. Be mindful of that.'

  'Apsalar is not seeking to flee us,' Mappo said. 'She is leading us. What significance should we place in that? With her godly gifts she could easily mask her trail—that shadow-wrought residue that, to Icarium and to myself, is as plain and undisguised as an Imperial road.'

  'There might be something else besides,' Fiddler muttered. Faces swung his way. He drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. 'The lass knows our intent, Crokus—what Kalam and I had planned and what is still—as far as I know—being followed.

  She could well have taken the notion that by assuming the guise of Sha'ik, she can… indirectly… support our efforts. In a manner wholly her own rather than that of the god who once possessed her.'

  Mappo smiled wryly. 'There is much you've held from myself and Icarium, soldier.'

  'An Imperial matter,' the sapper said, not meeting the Trell's eyes.

  'Yet one that sees advantage in this land's rebellion.'

  'Only in the short run, Mappo.'

  'In becoming Sha'ik reborn, Apsalar will not simply be engaging in a change of costume, Fiddler. The cause of the goddess will take hold of Apsalar's mind, her soul. Such visions and visitations will change her.'

  'She may not realize that particular possibility, I'm afraid.'

  'She's not a fool,' Crokus snapped.

  'I'm not saying she is,' Fiddler replied. 'Like it or not, Apsalar possesses something of a god's arrogance—I was witness to the full force of that back on Genabackis, and I can see that its stain still resides within her. Consider her present decision to leave Iskaral's temple, alone, in pursuit of her father.'

  'In other words,' Mappo said, 'you think she might believe she can withstand the influence of the goddess, even as she assumes the role of prophetess and warleader.'

  Crokus scowled. 'My mind's tumbling from one thing to the next. What if the patron god of assassins has reclaimed her? What will it mean if the rebellion is suddenly led by Cotillion—and, by extension, Ammanas? The dead Emperor returns to wreak vengeance.'

  There was silence. Fiddler had been gnawing on that possibility like an obsessed hound since it had occurred to him days earlier. The notion of a murdered Emperor turned Ascendant suddenly reaching out from the shadows to reclaim the Imperial throne was anything but a pleasant prospect. It was one thing seeking to assassinate Laseen—that was, in the end, a mortal affair. Gods ruling a mortal Empire, on the other hand, would draw other Ascendants, and in such a contest entire civilizations would be destroyed.

  They finished their meal without another word spoken.

  The dust filling the air refused to settle; it simply hung motionless, hot and lifeless. Icarium repacked the supplies. Fiddler strode over to Crokus.

  'No value in fretting, lad. She's found her father, after all these years—there's something to be said for that, don't you think?'

  The Daru's smile was wry. 'Oh, I've thought on that, Fid. And yes, I am happy for her, yet mistrustful. What should have been a wondrous reunion has been compromised. By Iskaral Pust. By Shadow's manipulation. It's soured everything—'

  'However you may have envisioned it, Crokus, it belongs to Apsalar.'

  The lad was silent for a long minute, then he nodded.

  Fiddler retrieved his crossbow and slung it over one shoulder. 'At the very least, we've had a respite from Sha'ik's soldiers and the D'ivers and Soletaken.'

  'Where is she leading us, Fid?'

  The sapper shrugged. 'I suspect we'll find that out soon enough.'

  The weathered man stood on the hump of rock, facing Raraku. The shroud of silence was absolute; he could hear his own heart, a steady, mindless rhythm in his chest. It had begun to haunt him.

  Rocks skittered at his back, and a moment later the Toblakai appeared, dropping a brace of arm-long lizards onto the bleached bedrock. 'Everything's come out for a look around,' the giant youth rumbled. 'For once, a meal worth eating.'

  The Toblakai was gaunt. His rages of impatience were gone, and Leoman was thankful for that, though he well knew that a withering of strength was the cause. We wait until Hood comes to take us, the huge barbarian had whispered a few days back, when the Whirlwind had burgeoned in renewed frenzy.

  Leoman had had no answer to that. His faith was in tatters. Sha'ik's wrapped corpse still lay between the wind-sculpted stone gateposts. It had shrunk. The tent-cloth shroud had frayed in the ceaseless, clawing wind. The dry knobs of her joints protruded through the worn weave. Her hair, which had continued to grow for weeks, had been pulled free and whipped endlessly in the storm.

  Yet now a change had come. The Whirlwind held its immortal breath. The desert, which had been lifted entire from its bones of rock, filling the air, refused to settle.

  The Toblakai saw this as the Whirlwind's death. Sha'ik's murder had triggered a prolonged tantrum, a defeated goddess rampaging in frustration and fury. Even as the rebellion spread its bloody cloak over Seven Cities, its heart was dead. The armies of the Apocalypse were the still-twitching limbs on a corpse.

  Leoman, plagued with hunger-born visions and fevers, had begun a slow stumbling towards the same belief.

  Yet…

  'This meal,' the Toblakai said, 'will give us the strength needed, Leoman.'

  For leaving. And where do we go? To the oasis in the centre of Raraku, where a dead woman's army still waits? Are we the chosen deliverers of the news of tragic failure? Or do we abandon them? Set off for Pan'potsun, then on to Ehrlitan
, a flight into anonymity?

  The warrior turned. His gaze travelled over the ground and came to rest on the Book of Dryjhna where it waited, unmarred by the Whirlwind, immune even to the dust that found its way into everything. The power abides. Unquenched. When I look upon that tome, I know I cannot let go…

  'Blades in hand and unhanded in wisdom. Young, yet old, one life whole, another incomplete—she shall emerge renewed…' Did still-hidden truths remain within those words? Had his imagination—his wilful yearning—betrayed him?

  The Toblakai squatted before the dead lizards, flipped the first one onto its back and set a knifeblade to its belly. 'I would go west,' he said. 'Into the Jhag Odhan…'

  Leoman glanced over. The Jhag Odhan, there to come face to face with other giants. The Jhag themselves. The Trell. More savages. The lad will feel right at home in that wasteland. 'This is not over,' the warrior said.

  The Toblakai bared his teeth, a hand plunging through the slit in the lizard's belly to re-emerge with slick entrails. 'This one's female. It's said the roe is good for fevers, isn't it?'

  'I am not fevered.'

  The giant said nothing, but Leoman saw a new set to his shoulders. The Toblakai had made a decision.

  'Take what's left of your kill,' the warrior said. 'You'll need it more than I.'

  'You jest, Leoman. You do not see yourself as I see you. You are skin on bones. You have devoured your own muscles. I see the skull behind the face when I look at you.'

  'I am clear of mind nonetheless.'

  The Toblakai grunted. 'A hale man would not say so with such certainty. Is that not the secret revelation of Raraku? "Madness is simply a state of mind."'

  'The Sayings of the Fool are aptly named,' Leoman muttered, his voice falling away. A charge was filling the hot, motionless air. The warrior felt his heart beat faster, harder.

  The Toblakai straightened, his huge hands smeared with blood.

  The two men slowly turned to face the ancient gate. The black hair emerging from the bundled corpse stirred, the strands gently lifting. The suspended dust had begun to swirl beyond the pillars. Sparks winked in its midst, like jewels set in an ochre cloak.