The Bonehunters

  'You crawled back in?' Fiddler demanded. 'Gesler—'

  'Believe me, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Now I know — or I think I know — what Truth went through, running into that palace. Abyss take me, I'm still shaking.'

  'Lead us on, then,' Corabb said, reaching back to grasp Fiddler's harness once more.

  Gesler made to move past him. 'I can do that—'

  'No. I have dragged him this far.'

  'Fid?'

  'For Hood's sake, Gesler, I've never been in better hands.'

  Chapter Eight

  Sarkanos, Ivindonos and Ganath stood looking down on the heaped corpses, the strewn pieces of flesh and fragments of bone. A field of battle knows only lost dreams and the ghosts clutch futilely at the ground, remembering naught but the last place of their lives, and the air is sullen now that the clangour is past, and the last moans of the dying have dwindled into silence.

  While this did not belong to them, they yet stood. Of Jaghut, one can never know their thoughts, nor even their aspirations, but they were heard to speak, then.

  'All told,' said Ganath. 'This sordid tale here has ended, and there is no-one left to heave the standard high, and proclaim justice triumphant.'

  'This is a dark plain,' said Ivindonos, 'and I am mind­ful of such things, the sorrow untold, unless witnessed.'

  'Not mindful enough,' said Sarkanos.

  'A bold accusation,' said Ivindonos, his tusks bared in anger. 'Tell me what I am blind to. Tell me what greater sorrow exists than what we see before us.'

  And Sarkanos made reply, 'Darker plains lie beyond.'

  Stela Fragment (Yath Alban), Anonymous

  There were times, Captain Ganoes Paran reflected, when a man could believe in nothing. No path taken could alter the future, and the future remained ever unknown, even by the gods. Sensing those currents, the tumult that lay ahead, achieved little except the loss of restful sleep, and a growing suspicion that all his efforts to shape that future were naught but conceit.

  He had pushed the horses hard, staying well clear of villages and hamlets where the Mistress stalked, sowing her deadly seeds, gathering to herself the power of poisoned blood and ten thousand deaths by her hand. Before long, he knew, that toll would rise tenfold. Yet for all his caution, the stench of death was inescapable, arriving again and again as if from nowhere, and no matter how great the distance between him and inhabited areas.

  Whatever Poliel's need, it was vast, and Paran was fearful, for he could not understand the game she played here.

  Back in Darujhistan, ensconced within the Finnest House, this land known as Seven Cities had seemed so far from the centre of things — or what he believed would soon become the centre of things. And it had been, in part, that mystery that had set him on this path, seeking to discover how what happened here would become enfolded into the greater scheme. Assuming, of course, that such a greater scheme existed.

  Equally as likely, he allowed, this war among the gods would implode into a maelstrom of chaos. There had been need, he had once been told, for a Master of the Deck of Dragons. There had been need, he had been told, for him. Paran had begun to suspect that, even then, it was already too late. This web was growing too fast, too snarled, for any single mind to fathom.

  Except maybe Kruppe, the famed Eel of Darujhistan... gods, I wish he was here, in my place, right now. Why wasn't he made the Master of the Deck of Dragons? Or maybe that incorrigible aplomb was naught but bravado, behind which the real Kruppe cowered in terror.

  Imagine Raest's thoughts... Paran smiled, recollecting. It had been early morning when that little fat man knocked on the door of the Finnest House, flushed of face and beaming up at the undead Jaghut Tyrant who opened it wide and stared down upon him with pitted eyes. Then, hands fluttering and proclaiming something about a crucial meeting, Kruppe somehow slid past the Azath guardian, waddling into the main hall and sinking with a delighted sigh of contentment into the plush chair beside the fireplace.

  An unexpected guest for breakfast; it seemed even Raest could do nothing about it. Or would not. The Jaghut had been typically reticent on the subject.

  And so Paran had found himself seated opposite the famed Defier of Caladan Brood — this corpulent little man in his faded waistcoat who had confounded the most powerful ascendants on Genabackis — and watched him eat. And eat. While somehow, at the same time, talking nonstop.

  'Kruppe knows the sad dilemma, yes indeed, of sad befud­dled Master. Twice sad? Nay, thrice sad! Four times sad —ah, how usage of the dread word culminates! Cease now, Sir Kruppe, lest we find ourselves weeping without surcease!' Lifting one greasy finger. 'Ah, but Master wonders, does he not, how can one man such as Kruppe know all these things? What things, you would also ask, given the chance, said chance Kruppe hastens to intercept with suitable answer. Had Kruppe such an answer, that is. But lo! He does not, and is that not the true wonder of it all?'

  'For Hood's sake,' Paran cut in — and got no further.

  'Yes indeed! For Hood's sake indeed, oh, you are brilliant and so worthy of the grand title of Master of the Deck of Dragons and Kruppe's most trusted friend! Hood, at the very centre of things, oh yes, and that is why you must hasten, forthwith, to Seven Cities.'

  Paran stared, dumbfounded, wondering what detail in that barrage of words he had missed. 'What?'

  'The gods, dear precious friend of Kruppe's! They are at war, yes? Terrible thing, war. Terrible things, gods. The two, together, ah, most terribler!'

  Terri— what? Oh, never mind.'

  'Kruppe never does.'

  'Why Seven Cities?'

  'Even the gods cast shadows, Master of the Deck. But what do shadows cast?'

  'I don't know. Gods?'

  Kruppe's expression grew pained. 'Oh my, a nonsensical reply. Kruppe's faith in dubious friend lies shaking. No, shaken. Not lies, is. See how Kruppe shakens? No, not gods. How can gods be cast? Do not answer that — such is the nature and unspoken agreement regards rhetoric. Now, where was Kruppe? Oh yes. Most terrible crimes are in the offing off in Seven Cities. Eggs have been laid and schemes have hatched! One particularly large shell is about to be broken, and will have been broken by the time you arrive, which means it is as good as broken right now so what are you waiting for? In fact, foolish man, you are already too late, or will be, by then, and if not then, then soon, in the imminent sense of the word. Soon, then, you must go, despite it being too late — I suggest you leave tomorrow morning and make use of warrens and other nefarious paths of inequity to hasten your hopeless quest to arrive. On time, and in time, and in due time you will indeed arrive, and then you must walk the singular shadow — between, dare Kruppe utter such dread words — between life and death, the wavy, blurry metaphor so callously and in­differently trespassed by things that should know better. Now, you have worn out Kruppe's ears, distended Kruppe's largesse unto bursting his trouser belt, and heretofore otherwise exhausted his vast intellect.' He rose with a grunt, then patted his tummy. 'A mostly acceptable repast, although Kruppe advises that you inform your cook that the figs were veritably mummified — from the Jaghut's own store, one must assume, yes, hmm?'

  There had been some sense, Paran had eventually con­cluded, within that quagmire of verbosity. Enough to frighten him, in any case, leading him to a more intense examination of the Deck of Dragons. Wherein the chaos was more pronounced than it ever had been before. And there, in its midst, the glimmer of a path, a way through — perhaps simply imagined, an illusion — but he would have to try, although the thought terrified him.

  He was not the man for this. He was stumbling, half-blind, within a vortex of converging powers, and he found he was struggling to maintain even the illusion of control.

  Seeing Apsalar again had been an unexpected gift. A girl no longer, yet, it appeared, as deadly as ever. Nonetheless, something like humanity had revealed itself, there in her eyes every now and then. He wondered what she had gone through since Cotillion had been banished
from her out­side Darujhistan — beyond what she had been willing to tell him, that is, and he wondered if she would complete her journey, to come out the other end, reborn one more time.

  He rose in his stirrups to stretch his legs, scanning the south for the telltale shimmer that would announce his destination. Nothing but heat-haze yet, and rugged, treeless hills rising humped on the pan. Seven Cities was a hot, blasted land, and he decided that even without plague, he didn't like it much.

  One of those hills suddenly vanished in a cloud of dust and flying debris, then a thundering boom drummed through the ground, startling the horses. As he struggled to calm them — especially his own mount, which had taken this opportunity to renew its efforts to unseat him, bucking and kicking — he sensed something else rolling out from the destroyed mound.

  Omtose Phellack.

  Settling his horse as best he could, Paran collected the reins and rode at a slow, jumpy canter towards the ruined hill.

  As he neared, he could hear crashing sounds from within the barrow — for a barrow it was — and when he was thirty paces distant, part of a desiccated body was flung from the hole, skidding in a clatter through the rubble. It came to a stop, then one arm lifted tremulously, dropping back down a moment later. A bone-helmed skull flew into view, ropes of hair twisting about, to bounce and roll in the dust.

  Paran reined in, watching as a tall, gaunt figure climbed free of the barrow, slowly straightening. Grey-green skin, trailing dusty cobwebs, wearing a silver-clasped harness and baldric of iron mail from which hung knives in copper scabbards — the various metals blackened or green with verdigris. Whatever clothing had once covered the figure's body had since rotted away.

  A Jaghut woman, her long black hair drawn into a single tail that reached down to the small of her back. Her tusks were silver-sheathed and thus black. She slowly looked round, her gaze finding and settling on him. Vertical pupils set in amber studied Paran from beneath a heavy brow. He watched her frown, then she asked, 'What manner of creature are you?'

  'A well-mannered one,' Paran replied, attempting a smile. She had spoken in the Jaghut tongue and he had understood... somehow. One of the many gifts granted by virtue of being the Master? Or long proximity with Raest and his endless muttering? Either way, Paran surprised him­self by replying in the same language.

  At which her frown deepened. 'You speak my tongue as would an Imass... had any Imass bothered to learn it. Or a Jaghut whose tusks had been pulled.'

  Paran glanced over at the partial corpse lying nearby. 'An Imass like that one?'

  She drew her thin lips back in what he took to be a smile. 'A guardian left behind — it had lost its vigilance. Undead have a tendency towards boredom, and carelessness.'

  T'lan Imass.'

  'If others are near, they will come now. I have little time.'

  'T'lan Imass? None, Jaghut. None anywhere close.'

  'You are certain?'

  'I am. Reasonably. You have freed yourself... why?'

  'Freedom needs an excuse?' She brushed dust and webs from her lean body, then faced west. 'One of my rituals has been shattered. I must needs repair it.'

  Paran thought about that, then asked, 'A binding ritual? Something, or someone was imprisoned, and, like you just now, it seeks freedom?'

  She looked displeased with the comparison. 'Unlike the entity I imprisoned, I have no interest in conquering the world.'

  Oh. 'I am Ganoes Paran.'

  'Ganath. You look pitiful, like a malnourished Imass — are you here to oppose me?'

  He shook his head. 'I was but passing by, Ganath. I wish you good fortune—'

  She suddenly turned, stared eastward, head cocking.

  'Something?' he asked. 'T'lan Imass?'

  She glanced at him. 'I am not certain. Perhaps... nothing. Tell me, is there a sea south of here?'

  'Was there one when you were... not yet in your bar­row?'

  'Yes.'

  Paran smiled. 'Ganath, there is indeed a sea just south of here, and it is where I am headed.'

  'Then I shall travel with you. Why do you journey there?'

  'To talk with some people. And you? I thought you were in a hurry to repair that ritual?'

  'I am, yet I find a more pressing priority.'

  'And that is?'

  'The need for a bath.'

  ****

  Too bloated to fly, the vultures scattered with outraged cries, hopping and waddling with wings crooked, leaving the once-human feast exposed in their wake. Apsalar slowed her steps, not sure whether she wanted to continue walking down this main street, although the raucous chattering and bickering of feeding vultures sounded from the side avenues as well, leading her to suspect that no alternative route was possible.

  The villagers had died suffering — there was no mercy in this plague, for it had carved a long, tortured path to Hood's Gate. Swollen glands, slowly closing the throat, making it impossible to eat solid food, and narrowing the air passages, making every breath drawn agony. And, in the gut, gases distending the stomach. Blocked from any means of escape, they eventually burst the stomach lining, allowing the victim's own acids to devour them from within. These, alas, were the final stages of the disease. Before then, there was fever, so hot that brains were cooked in the skull, driving the person half-mad — a state from which, even were the disease somehow halted then and there — there was no recovery. Eyes wept mucus, ears bled, flesh grew gelatinous at the joints — this was the Mistress in all her sordid glory.

  The two skeletal reptiles accompanying Apsalar had sprinted ahead, entertaining themselves by frightening the vultures and bursting through buzzing masses of flies. Now they scampered back, unmindful of the blackened, half-eaten corpses they clambered over.

  'Not-Apsalar! You are too slow!'

  'No, Telorast,' cried Curdle, 'not slow enough!'

  'Yes, not slow enough! We like this village — we want to play!'

  Leading her placid horse, Apsalar began picking her way down the street. A score of villagers had crawled out here for some unknown reason, perhaps in some last, pathetic attempt to escape what could not be escaped. They had died clawing and fighting each other. 'You are welcome to stay as long as you like,' she said to the two creatures.

  'That cannot be,' Telorast said. 'We are your guardians, after all. Your sleepless, ever-vigilant sentinels. We shall stand guard over you no matter how diseased and disgust­ing you become.'

  'And then we'll pick out your eyes!'

  'Curdle! Don't tell her that!'

  'Well, we'll wait until she's sleeping, of course. Thrashing in fever.'

  'Exactly. She'll want us to by then, anyway.'

  'I know, but we've walked through two villages now and she still isn't sick. I don't understand. All the other mortals are dead or dying, what makes her so special?'

  'Chosen by the usurpers of Shadow — that's why she can just saunter through with her nose in the air. We may have to wait before we can pick out her eyes.'

  Apsalar stepped past the heap of corpses. Just ahead, the village came to an abrupt end and beyond stood the charred remnants of three outlying buildings. A crow-haunted cemetery surmounted a nearby low hill where stood a lone guldindha tree. The black birds crowded the branches in sullen silence. A few makeshift platforms attested to some early efforts at ceremony to attend the dead, but clearly that had been short-lived. A dozen white goats stood in the tree's shade, watching Apsalar as she continued on down the road, flanked by the skeletons of Telorast and Curdle.

  Something had happened, far to the north and west. No, she could be more precise than that. Y'Ghatan. There had been a battle... and the committing of a terrible crime. Y'Ghatan's lust for Malazan blood was legendary, and Apsalar feared that it had drunk deep once more.

  In every land, there were places that saw battle again and again, an endless succession of slaughter, and more often than not such places held little strategic value in any greater scheme, or were ultimately indefensible. As if the ve
ry rocks and soil mocked every conqueror foolish enough to lay claim to them. Cotillion's thoughts, these. He had never been afraid to recognize futility, and the world's pleasure in defying human grandiosity.

  She passed the last of the burned-out buildings, relieved to have left their stench behind — rotting bodies she was used to, but something of that charred reek slipped beneath her senses like a premonition. It was nearing dusk. Apsalar climbed back into the saddle and gathered up the reins.

  She would attempt the warren of Shadow, even though she already knew it was too late — something had happened at Y'Ghatan; at the very least, she could look upon the wounds left behind and pick up the trail of the survivors. If any existed.

  'She dreams of death,' Telorast said. 'And now she's angry.'

  'With us?'

  'Yes. No. Yes. No.'

  'Ah, she's opened a warren! Shadow! Lifeless trail wind­ing through lifeless hills, we shall perish from ennui! Wait, don't leave us!'

  ****

  They climbed out of the pit to find a banquet awaiting them. A long table, four high-backed Untan-style chairs, a candelabra in the centre bearing four thick-stemmed beeswax candles, the golden light flickering down on silver plates heaped with Malazan delicacies. Oily santos fish from the shoals off Kartool, baked with butter and spices in clay; strips of marinated venison, smelling of almonds in the northern D'avorian style; grouse from the Seti plains stuffed with bull-berries and sage; baked gourds and fillets of snake from Dal Hon; assorted braised vegetables and four bottles of wine: a Malaz Island white from the Paran Estates, warmed rice wine from Itko Kan, a full-bodied red from Gris, and the orange-tinted belack wine from the Napan Isles.

  Kalam stood staring at the bounteous apparition, as Stormy, with a grunt, walked over, boots puffing in the dust, and sat down in one of the chairs, reaching for the Grisian red.

  'Well,' Quick Ben said, dusting himself off, 'this is nice. Who's the fourth chair for, you think?'