The Bonehunters

  'You have just walked away from three such allies—'

  'Allies who won't rip our heads off once the threat's been negated.'

  'Ah, there is that. Very well, Cotillion, I will give the matter some consideration.'

  'Take your time.'

  'That seems a contrary notion.'

  'If one is lacking a grasp of sarcasm, I imagine it does at that.'

  'You do interest me, Cotillion. And that is a rare thing.'

  'I know. You have existed longer...' Cotillion's words died away. An elemental force. I guess he has at that. Dammit.

  ****

  There were so many ways of seeing this dreadful need, the vast conspiracy of motivations from which all shades and casts of morality could be culled, that Mappo Runt was left feeling overwhelmed, from which only sorrow streamed down, pure and chilled, into his thoughts. Beneath the coarse skin of his hands, he could feel the night's memory slowly fading from the stone, and soon this rock would know the assault of the sun's heat — this pitted, root-tracked underbelly that had not faced the sun in countless millennia.

  He had been turning over stones. Six since dawn. Roughly chiselled dolomite slabs, and beneath each one he had found a scatter of broken bones. Small bones, fossilized, and though in countless pieces after the interminable crushing weight of the stone, the skeleton's were, as far as Mappo could determine, complete.

  There were, had been, and would always be, all manner of wars. He knew that, in all the seared, scar-hardened places in his soul, so there was no shock in his discovery of these long-dead Jaghut children. And horror had run a mercifully swift passage through his thoughts, leaving at the last his old friend, sorrow.

  Streaming down, pure and chilled.

  Wars in which soldier fought soldier, sorceror clashed with sorceror. Assassins squared off, knife-blades flickering in the night. Wars in which the lawful battled the wilfully unlawful; in which the sane stood against the sociopath. He had seen crystals growing up in a single night from the desert floor, facet after facet revealed like the petals of an opening flower, and it seemed to him that brutality behaved in a like manner. One incident leading to another, until a conflagration burgeoned, swallowing everyone in its path.

  Mappo lifted his hands from the slab's exposed underside and slowly straightened. To look over at his companion, still wading the warm shallows of the Raraku Sea. Like a child unfolding to a new, unexpected pleasure. Splashing about, running his hands through the reeds that had appeared as if remembered into existence by the sea itself.

  Icarium.

  My crystal.

  When the conflagration consumed children, then the distinction between the sane and the sociopath ceased to exist. It was his flaw, he well knew, to yearn to seek the truth of every side, to comprehend the myriad justifications for committing the most brutal crimes. Imass had been enslaved by deceitful Jaghut tyrants, led down paths of false worship, made to do unspeakable things. Until they had uncovered the deceivers. Unleashing vengeance, first against the tyrants, then against all Jaghut. And so the crystal grew, facet after facet...

  Until this... He glanced down once more upon the child's bones. Pinned beneath dolomite slabs. Not lime­stone, for dolomite provided a good surface for carving glyphs, and though soft, it absorbed power, making it slower to erode than raw limestone, and so it held those glyphs, faded and soft-edged after all these thousands of years to be sure, but discernible still.

  The power of those wards persisted, long after the creature imprisoned by them had died.

  Dolomite was said to hold memories. A belief among Mappo's own people, at least, who in their wanderings had encountered such Imass edifices, the impromptu tombs, the sacred circles, the sight-stones on hill summits — en­countered, and then studiously avoided. For the hauntings in these places was a palpable thing.

  Or so we managed to convince ourselves.

  He sat here, on the edge of Raraku Sea, in the place of an ancient crime, and beyond what his own thoughts conjured, there was nothing. The stone he had set his hands upon seemed possessed of the shortest of memories. The cold of darkness, the heat of the sun. That, and nothing more.

  The shortest of memories.

  Splashing, and Icarium was striding up onto the shore­line, his eyes bright with pleasure. 'Such a worthy boon, yes, Mappo? I am enlivened by these waters. Oh, why will you not swim and so be blessed by Raraku's gift?'

  Mappo smiled. 'Said blessing would quickly wash off this old hide, my friend. I fear the gift would be wasted, and so will not risk disappointing the awakened spirits.'

  'I feel,' Icarium said, 'as if the quest begins anew. I will finally discover the truth. Who I am. All that I have done. I will discover, too,' he added as he approached, 'the reason for your friendship — that you should always be found at my side, though I lose myself again and again. Ah, I fear I have offended you — no, please, do not look so glum. It is only that I cannot understand why you have sacrificed yourself so. As far as friendships go, this must be a most frustrating one for you.'

  'No, Icarium, there is no sacrifice involved. Nor frustration. This is what we are, and this is what we do. That is all.'

  Icarium sighed and turned to look out over the new sea. 'If only I could be as restful of thought as you, Mappo...'

  'Children have died here.'

  The Jhag swung round, his green eyes studying the ground behind the Trell. 'I saw you pitching rocks. Yes, I see them. Who were they?'

  Some nightmare the night before had scoured away Icarium's memories. This had been happening more often of late. Troubling. And... crushing. 'Jaghut. From the wars with the T'lan Imass.'

  'A terrible thing to have done,' Icarium said. The sun was fast drying the water beaded on his hairless, green-grey skin. 'How is it that mortals can be so cavalier with life? Look at this freshwater sea, Mappo. The new shoreline burgeons with sudden life. Birds, and insects, and all the new plants, there is so much joy revealed, my friend, that my heart feels moments from bursting.'

  'Infinite wars,' Mappo said. 'Life's struggles, each trying to push the other aside, and so win out.'

  'You are grim company this morning, Mappo.'

  'Aye, I am at that. I am sorry, Icarium.'

  'Shall we remain here for a time ?'

  Mappo studied his friend. Bereft of his upper garments, he looked more savage, more barbaric than usual. The dye with which he had disguised the colour of his skin had mostly faded away. 'As you like. This journey is yours, after all.'

  'Knowledge is returning,' Icarium said, eyes still on the sea. 'Raraku's gift. We were witness to the rise of the waters, here on this west shore. Further west, then, there will be a river, and many cities—'

  Mappo's gaze narrowed. 'Only one, now, to speak of,' he said.

  'Only one?'

  'The others died thousands of years ago, Icarium.'

  'N'karaphal? Trebur? Inath'an Merusin? Gone?'

  'Inath'an Merusin is now called Mersin. It is the last of the great cities lining the river.'

  'But there were so many, Mappo. I recall all their names. Vinith, Hedori Kwil, Tramara...'

  'All practising intensive irrigation, drawing the river's waters out onto the plains. All clearing forests to build their ships. Those cities are dead now, my friend. And the river, its waters once so clear and sweet, is now heavy with silts and much diminished. The plains have lost their top-soil, becoming the Lato Odhan to the east of the Mersin River, and Ugarat Odhan to the west.'

  Icarium slowly raised his hands, set them against his tem­ples, and closed his eyes. 'That long, Mappo?' he asked in a frail whisper.

  'Perhaps the sea has triggered such memories. For it was indeed a sea back then, freshwater for the most part, although there was seepage through the limestone escarp­ment from Longshan Bay — that vast barrier was rotting through, as it will do again, I imagine, assuming this sea reaches as far north as it once did.'

  'The First Empire?'

  'It was falling even then
. There was no recovery.' Mappo hesitated, seeing how his words had wounded his friend. 'But the people returned to this land, Icarium. Seven Cities — yes, the name derives from old remembrances. New cities have grown from the ancient rubble. We are only forty leagues from one right now. Lato Revae. It is on the coast—'

  Icarium turned away suddenly. 'No,' he said. 'I am not yet ready to leave, to cross any oceans. This land holds secrets — my secrets, Mappo. Perhaps the antiquity of my memories will prove advantageous. The lands of my mindscape are the lands of my own past, after all, and they might well yield truths. We shall walk those ancient roads.' '

  The Trell nodded. 'I will break camp, then.'

  'Trebur.'

  Mappo turned, waited with growing dread.

  Icarium's eyes were fixed on him now, the vertical pupils narrowed to black slivers by the bright sunlight. 'I have memories of Trebur. I spent time there, in the City of Domes. I did something. An important thing.' He frowned. 'I did... something.'

  'It is an arduous journey ahead of us, then,' Mappo said. 'Three, maybe four days to the edge of the Thalas Mountains. Ten more at the least to reach the Mersin River's Wend. The channel has moved from the site of ancient Trebur. A day's travel west of the river, then, and we will find those ruins.'

  'Will there be villages and such on our route?'

  Mappo shook his head. 'These Odhans are virtually life­less now, Icarium. Occasionally, Vedanik tribes venture down from the Thalas Mountains, but not at this time of year. Keep your bow at the ready — there are antelope and hares and drolig.'

  'Waterholes, then?'

  'I know them,' Mappo said.

  Icarium walked over to his gear. 'We have done this before, haven't we?'

  Yes. 'Not for a long while, my friend.' Almost eighty years, in fact. But the last time, we stumbled onto it — you remembered nothing. This time, I fear, it will be different.

  Icarium paused, the horn-rimmed bow in his hands, and looked over at Mappo. 'You are so patient with me,' he said, with a faint, sad smile, 'whilst I wander, ever lost.'

  Mappo shrugged. 'It is what we do.'

  ****

  The Path'Apur Mountains rimmed the far horizon to the south. It had been almost a week since they had left the city of Pan'potsun, and with each day the number of villages they passed through had dwindled, whilst the distance between them lengthened. Their pace was torturously slow, but that was to be expected, travelling on foot as they did, and with a man in their company who had seemingly lost his mind.

  Sun-darkened skin almost olive beneath the dust, the demon Greyfrog clambered onto the boulder and squatted at Cutter's side.

  'Declaration. It is said that the wasps of the desert guard gems and such. Query. Has Cutter heard such tales? Anticipatory pause.'

  'Sounds more like someone's bad idea of a joke,' Cutter replied. Below them was a flat clearing surrounded by massive rock outcroppings. It was the place of their camp. Scillara and Felisin Younger sat in view, tending the makeshift hearth. The madman was nowhere to be seen. Off wandering again, Cutter surmised. Holding conver­sations with ghosts, or, perhaps more likely, the voices in his head. Oh, Heboric carried curses, the barbs of a tiger on his skin, the benediction of a god of war, and those voices in his head might well be real. Even so, break a man's spirit enough times...

  'Belated observation. Grubs, there in the dark reaches of the nest. Nest? Bemused. Hive? Nest.'

  Frowning, Cutter glanced over at the demon. Its flat, hairless head and broad, four-eyed face were lumpy and swollen with wasp stings. 'You didn't. You did.'

  'Irate is their common state, I now believe. Breaking open their cave made them more so. We clashed in buzzing disagree­ment. I fared the worse, I think.'

  'Black wasps?'

  'Tilt head, query. Black? Dreaded reply, why yes, they were. Black. Rhetorical, was that significant?'

  'Be glad you're a demon,' Cutter said. 'Two or three stings from those will kill a grown man. Ten will kill a horse.'

  'A horse — we had those — you had them. I was forced to run. Horse. Large four-legged animal. Succulent meat.'

  'People tend to ride them,' Cutter said. 'Until they drop, then we eat them.'

  'Multiple uses, excellent and unwasteful. Did we eat yours? Where can we find more such creatures?'

  'We have not the money to purchase them, Greyfrog. And we sold ours for food and supplies in Pan'potsun.'

  'Obstinate reasonableness. No money. Then we should take, my young friend. And so hasten this journey to its much-awaited conclusion. Latter tone indicating mild despair.'

  'Still no word from L'oric?'

  'Worriedly. No. My brother is silent.'

  Neither spoke for a time. The demon was picking the serrated edges of its lips, where, Cutter saw upon a closer look, grey flecks and crushed wasps were snagged. Greyfrog had eaten the wasp nest. No wonder the wasps had been irate. Cutter rubbed at his face. He needed a shave. And a bath. And clean, new clothes.

  And a purpose in life. Once, long ago, when he had been Crokus Younghand of Darujhistan, his uncle had begun preparing the way for a reformed Crokus. A youth of the noble courts, a figure of promise, a figure inviting to the young, wealthy, pampered women of the city. A short­lived ambition, in every way. His uncle dead, and dead, too, Crokus Younghand. No heap of ashes left to stir.

  What I was is not what I am. Two men, identical faces, but different eyes. In what they have seen, in what they reflect upon the world.

  'Bitter taste,' Greyfrog said in his mind, long tongue slithering out to collect the last fragments. A heavy, gusty sigh. 'Yet oh so filling. Query. Can one burst from what one has inside?'

  I hope not. 'We'd best find Heboric, if we are to make use of this day.'

  'Noted earlier. Ghost Hands was exploring the rocks above. The scent of a trail led him onward and upward.'

  'A trail?'

  'Water. He sought the source of the spring we see pooling below near the fleshy women who, said jealously, so adore you.'

  Cutter straightened. 'They don't seem so fleshy to me, Greyfrog.'

  'Curious. Mounds of flesh, water storage vessels, there on the hips and behind. On the chest—'

  'All right. That kind of fleshy. You are too much the carnivore, demon.'

  'Yes. Fullest delicious agreement. Shall I go find Ghost Hands?'

  'No, I will. I think those riders who passed us yesterday on the track are not as far away as they should be, and I would be relieved to know you are guarding Scillara and Felisin.'

  'None shall take them away,' Greyfrog said.

  Cutter looked down at the squatting demon. 'Scillara and Felisin are not horses.'

  Greyfrog's large eyes blinked slowly, first the two side-by-side, then the pair above and below. Tongue darted. 'Blithe. Of course not. Insufficient number of legs, worthily observed.'

  Cutter edged to the back of the boulder, then leapt across to another one tucked deeper into the talus-heaped cliff-side. He grasped a ledge and pulled himself up. Little different from climbing a balcony, or an estate wall. Adore me, do they? He had trouble believing that. Easier to rest eyes upon, he imagined, than an old man and a demon, but that was not adoration. He could make no sense of those two women. Bickering like sisters, competing over every­thing in sight, and over things Cutter couldn't see or comprehend. At other times, unaccountably close, as if sharing a secret. Both fussed over Heboric Ghost Hands, Destriant of Treach.

  Maybe war needs nurturers. Maybe the god is happy with this. The priest needs acolytes, after all. That might have been expected with Scillara, since Heboric had drawn her out of a nightmarish existence, and indeed had healed her in some as-yet unspecified way — if Cutter had surmised correctly from the meagre comments overheard now and then. Scillara had a lot to be grateful for. And for Felisin, there had been something about revenge, delivered to her satisfaction against someone who had done her a terrible wrong. It was complicated. So, a moment's thought, and it's obvious they do possess se
crets. Too many of them. Oh, what do I care? Women are nothing but a mass of contradictions mtsurrounded by deadly pitfalls. Approach at your own risk... Better yet, approach not at all.

  He reached a chimney in the cliff-side and began work­ing his way up it. Water trickled down vertical cracks in the rock. Flies and other winged insects swarmed him; the corners of the chimney were thickly webbed by oppor­tunistic spiders. By the time he climbed free of it, he had been thoroughly bitten and was covered in thick, dusty strands. He paused to brush himself off, then looked around. A rough trail continued upward, winding between collapsed shelves of stone. He headed up the path.

  At their meandering, desultory pace, they were months from the coast, as far as he could determine. Once there, they would have to find a boat to take them across to Otataral Island. A forbidden journey, and Malazan ships patrolled those waters diligently — or at least they did before the uprising. It might be that they were yet to fully reorganize such things.

  They would begin the passage at night, in any case.

  Heboric had to return something. Something found on the island. It was all very vague. And for some reason Cotillion had wanted Cutter to accompany the Destriant. Or, rather, to protect Felisin Younger. A path to take, when before there had been none. Even so, it was not the best of motivations. A flight from despair was pathetic, especially since it could not succeed.

  Adore me, do they? What is here to adore?

  A voice ahead: 'All that is mysterious is as a lure to the curious. I hear your steps, Cutter. Come, see this spider.'

  Cutter stepped round an outcrop and saw Heboric, kneeling beside a stunted scrub oak.

  'And where there is pain and vulnerability bound into the lure, it becomes all the more attractive. See this spider? Below this branch, yes? Trembling on its web, one leg dis­membered, thrashing about as if in pain. Its quarry, you see, is not flies, or moths. Oh no, what she hunts is fellow spiders.'