Though it was unlikely these mountain beasts had ever before hunted a Teblor warrior. Karsa had not expected to find snow, particularly since his route took him alongside the north shoulder of the jagged range—it was fortunate that he would not have to climb through any passes. On his right, less than two leagues distant, he could still see the ochre sands of the desert basin, and well knew that down there, the sun blazed hot—the same sun that looked down upon him now, a blurred orb of cold fire.
The snow was shin-deep, slowing his steady jog. Somehow, the wolves managed to run across its wind-hardened, crusty surface, only occasionally plunging a paw through. The fog enshrouding hunters and prey was in fact snow crystals, glittering with bright, blinding light.
Somewhere to the west, Karsa had been told, the range of mountains would end. There would be sea on his right, a narrow rumpled passage of hills ahead and on his left. Across those hills, then southward, there would be a city. Lato Revae. The Teblor had no interest in visiting it, though he would have to skirt it. The sooner he left civilized lands behind, the better. But that was two river crossings distant, with weeks of travel between now and then.
Though he ran alone along the slope, he could feel the presence of his two companions. Ghost spirits at the most, but perhaps nothing more than fractured selves of his own mind. Sceptical Bairoth Gild. Stolid Delum Thord. Facets of his own soul, so that he might persist in this dialogue of self-doubt. Perhaps, then, nothing more than an indulgence. Or so it would seem, if not for the countless, blood-scoring edges of Bairoth Gild’s commentary. At times, Karsa felt as if he was a slave once more, hunched beneath endless flagellation. The notion that he was delivering this to himself was beyond contemplating.
‘Not entirely beyond, Warleader, if you’d spare yourself but a moment to regard your own thoughts.’
‘Not now, Bairoth Gild,’ Karsa replied. ‘I am running short on breath as it is.’
‘Altitude, Karsa Orlong,’ came Delum Thord’s voice. ‘Though you do not feel it, with each step westward you are descending. Soon you will leave the snow behind. Raraku may have once been an inland sea, but it was a sea couched in the lap of high mountains. Your entire journey thus far, Warleader, has been a descent.’
Karsa could spare that thought only a grunt. He had felt no particular descent, but horizons played deceptive games in this land. The desert and mountains ever lied, he had long since discovered.
‘When the snow is gone,’ Bairoth Gild murmured, ‘the wolves will attack.’
‘I know. Now be quiet—I see bare rock ahead.’ As did his hunters. They numbered at least a dozen, taller at the shoulder than those of Karsa’s homeland, and furred in tones of dun, grey and speckled white. The Teblor watched as four of the beasts sprinted ahead, two on each side, making for the exposed rock.
Growling, Karsa unslung his wooden sword. The bitter cold air had left his hands slightly numb. Had the western end of the Holy Desert held any sources of water, he would not have climbed to these heights, but there was little point in second-guessing that decision now.
The panting breaths of the wolves were audible on either side and behind him.
‘They want the sure footing, Warleader. Then again, so do you. Beware the three in your wake—they will strike first, likely a pace or two before you reach the rock.’
Karsa bared his teeth at Bairoth’s unnecessary advice. He well knew what these beasts would do, and when.
A sudden thumping of paws, flurries of snow springing into the air, and all the wolves raced past a surprised Karsa. Claws clattered on the bared rock, water spraying from the sun’s melt, and the beasts wheeled to form a half-circle before the Teblor.
He slowed his steps, readying his weapon. For once, even Bairoth Gild was silenced—no doubt as uncertain as he himself was.
A rasping, panting stranger’s voice hissed through Karsa’s mind: ‘We enjoyed that, Toblakai. You have run without pause for three nights and almost four days. That we are impressed would be a tragic understatement. We have never before seen the like. See our heaving flanks? You have exhausted us. And look at you—you breathe deep and there is red around your eyes, yet you stand ready, with not a waver in your legs, or from the strange sword in your hands. Will you now do us harm, warrior?’
Karsa shook his head. The language was Malazan. ‘You are like a Soletaken, then. But many, not one. This would be . . . D’ivers? I have killed Soletaken—this fur on my shoulders is proof enough of that, if you doubt me. Attack me if you will, and when I have killed all of you, I will have a cloak even the gods will envy.’
‘We are no longer interested in killing you, warrior. Indeed, we accost you now to deliver a warning.’
‘What kind of warning?’
‘You are on someone’s trail.’
Karsa shrugged. ‘Two men, both heavy, though one is taller. They walk side by side.’
‘Side by side, yes. And what does that tell you?’
‘Neither leads, neither follows.’
‘Danger rides your shoulders, Toblakai. About you is an air of threat—another reason why we will not cross you. Powers vie for your soul. Too many. Too deadly. But heed our warning: should you cross one of those travellers . . . the world will come to regret it. The world, warrior.’
Karsa shrugged a second time. ‘I am not interested in fighting anyone at the moment, D’ivers. Although, if I am in turn crossed, then I am not the one to answer for whatever regret the world then experiences. Now, I am done with words. Move from my path, or I will kill you all.’
The wolves hesitated. ‘Tell them that Ryllandaras sought to dissuade you. Before you make your last living act one that sees this world destroyed.’
He watched them wheel and make their way down the slope.
Bairoth Gild’s laugh was a faint thunder in his mind. Karsa nodded. ‘None would accept the blame for what has not yet occurred,’ he rumbled. ‘That, by itself, constitutes a curiously potent warning.’
‘You do indeed grow into yourself, Karsa Orlong. What will you do?’
Karsa bared his teeth as he reslung his sword over a fur-clad shoulder. ‘Do, Bairoth Gild? Why, I would meet these dire travellers, of course.’
This time, Bairoth Gild did not laugh.
Strains of meltwater flowed over the brittle rock beneath Karsa’s moccasins. Ahead, the descent continued into a crowded maze of sandstone mesas, their level tops capped with ice and snow. Despite the bright, mid-afternoon sun in the cloudless sky, the narrow, twisting channels between the mesas remained in deep shadow.
But the snow underfoot had vanished, and already he could feel a new warmth in the air. There seemed but one way down, and it was as much a stream as a trail. Given the lack of signs, the Teblor could only assume that the two strangers ahead of him had taken the same route.
He moved slower now, his legs heavy with fatigue. The truth of his exhaustion had not been something he would reveal to the D’ivers wolves, but that threat was behind him now. He was close to collapse—hardly ideal if he was about to cross blades with a world-destroying demon.
Still his legs carried him forward, as if of their own accord. As if fated.
‘And fate, Karsa Orlong, carries its own momentum.’
‘Returned at last to hound me once more, Bairoth Gild? At the very least, you should speak words of advice. This Ryllandaras, this D’ivers—portentous words, yes?’
‘Absurdly so, Warleader. There are no powers in this world—or any other—that pose such absolute threat. Spoken through the frenzied currents of fear. Likely personal in nature—whoever walks ahead has had dealings with the one named Ryllandaras, and it was the D’ivers who suffered with the meeting.’
‘You are probably right, Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord, you have been silent a long while. What are your thoughts?’
‘I am troubled, Warleader. The D’ivers was a powerful demon, after all. To take so many shapes, yet remain one. To speak in your mind as would a god—’
Karsa grim
aced. ‘A god . . . or a pair of ghosts. Not a demon, Delum Thord. We Teblor are too careless with that word. Forkrul Assail. Soletaken. D’ivers. None are demons in truth, for none were summoned to this world, none belong to any other realm but this one. They are in truth no different from us Teblor, or the lowlanders. No different from rhizan and capemoths, from horses and dogs. They are all of this world, Delum Thord.’
‘As you say, Warleader. But we Teblor were never simplistic in our use of the word. Demon also refers to behaviour, and in this manner all things can be demonic. The one named Ryllandaras hunted us, and had you not driven it into exhaustion, it would have attacked, despite your words to the contrary.’
Karsa considered, then nodded. ‘True enough, Delum Thord. You advise caution. This was always your way, so I am not surprised. I will not ignore your words for that, however.’
‘Of course you will, Karsa Orlong.’
A last stretch of sunlight, then the Teblor was in shadow. The run-off swept around his ankles as the track narrowed, the footing growing treacherous. Once more he could see his breath.
A short climb to his left ran a broad ledge of some kind, out of the shadow and looking bone dry. Karsa swung from the trail and clambered up the gully’s eroded bank until he was able to pull himself onto it. He straightened. Not a natural ledge after all. A road, running parallel to the gorge as it girdled the first mesa on his left. The wall of the mesa itself seemed to have been smoothed once, long ago, to a height twice Karsa’s own. Faint pictographic images were visible on it, pitted and made colourless by passing centuries. A procession of figures, each scaled to that of a lowlander, bareheaded and wearing naught but a loincloth. They held their hands high overhead, fingers stretched out as if clutching at empty air.
The road itself was latticed in cracks, battered by incessant rocks tumbling down from the mesa. Despite this, it seemed as if the road was made of a single piece of stone, though of course that was impossible. Heaved and rumpled, it wound along the curve of the mesa wall then shifted away onto a ramp of sorts, hazy in the distance, that presumably led down to the plain. The horizon directly ahead and to Karsa’s right was cut short by towers of stone, though he knew that, beyond them, stretched the waters of the Longshan Sea.
Weariness forced the Teblor to slowly settle on the road, removing his pack and sitting against the mesa’s rock wall. The journey had been long, but he knew his path ahead was still longer. And, it seemed, he would ever walk it alone. For these ghosts remain just that. Perhaps, in truth, no more than my mind’s own conjuring. A displeasing thought.
He leaned his head back on the rough, sun-warmed stone.
His eyes blinked open—to darkness.
‘Awake once more, Warleader? We were wondering if your sleep would prove eternal. There are sounds ahead—can you hear them? Oh, they’ve travelled far, but that is the way with this land, isn’t it? Still . . . stones are being moved, I think. Tossed. Too slow, too regular to be a rockfall. The two strangers, one might conclude.’
Karsa slowly stood, stretching to ease his sore, chilled muscles. He could hear the steady clack of stones striking stone, but Bairoth Gild was right—they were distant. The warrior crouched down beside his pack and removed foodstuffs and a bladder of meltwater.
It was near dawn. Whoever it was working somewhere ahead had begun early.
Karsa took his time breaking his fast, and when he was finally done and ready to resume his journey, the sky was pink to the east. A final examination of the condition of his sword and the fittings on his armour, then he was on the move once again.
The steady clangour of the stones continued through half the morning. The road skirted the mesa for a distance that was longer than he had originally judged, revealing the ramp ahead to be massive, its sides sheer, the plain beneath a third of a league or more below. Just before the road departed the mesa, it opened out into a shelf-like expanse, and here, set into the mesa wall, was the face of a city. Rockslides had buried fully half of it, and the spreading ridges of secondary slides lay atop the main one.
Before one of these lesser slides sat a pair of tents.
Three hundred paces away from them, Karsa halted.
There was a figure at the secondary slide, clearing rocks with a steady, almost obsessive rhythm, tossing huge chunks of sandstone out behind him to bounce and roll on the flat concourse. Nearby, seated on a boulder, was another figure, and where the first one was tall—taller than a lowlander by far—this one was impressively wide at the shoulders, dark-skinned, heavy-maned. A large leather sack was beside him, and he was gnawing on a smoke-blackened hind leg—the rest of the small mountain goat was still spitted on a huge skewer over a stone-lined hearth near the tents.
Karsa studied the scene for a time, then, shrugging, made his way towards the two figures.
He was less than twenty paces away before the huge, barbaric man seated on the boulder swung his head around.
And gestured with the haunch in his hand. ‘Help yourself. The thing damn near brained me, falling from the cliffside, so I feel obliged to eat it. Funny, that. You always see them, scampering and clambering way up there, and so you naturally believe they never make a misstep. Well, another delusion shattered.’
He was speaking a desert dialect, a lowlander tongue, yet he was no lowlander. Large, thick canines, hair on shoulders like a boar’s bristles, a heavy-boned face wide and flat. Eyes the hue of the sandstone cliffs around them.
At his words, the stranger’s companion ceased throwing rocks and straightened, and was now regarding Karsa curiously.
The Teblor was equally frank as he returned the stare. Almost as tall as he was, though leaner. Greyish, green-tinged skin. Lower canines large enough to be tusks. A longbow leaned nearby, along with a quiver, and a leather-strap harness to which a scabbarded sword was attached. The first weapons Karsa had yet seen—for the other one appeared to be entirely unarmed, barring the thick hunting knife at his belt.
The mutual examination continued for a moment longer, then the tusked warrior resumed his excavation, disappearing from sight as he strode into the cavity he had cleared in the rockfall. Karsa glanced back at the other man. Who gestured again with the goat leg.
The Teblor approached. He set down his pack near the hearth and drew a knife, then cut away a slab of meat and returned to where the other sat. ‘You speak the language of the tribes,’ Karsa said, ‘yet I have never before seen your kind. Nor that of your companion.’
‘And you are an equally rare sight, Thelomen Toblakai. I am named Mappo, of the people known as Trell, who hail from west of the Jhag Odhan. My single-minded companion is Icarium, a Jhag—’
‘Icarium? Is that a common name, Mappo? There is a figure in my tribe’s own legends who is so named.’
The Trell’s ochre eyes narrowed momentarily. ‘Common? Not in the way you ask. The name certainly appears in the tales and legends of countless people.’
Karsa frowned at the odd pedantry, if that was what it was. Then he crouched down opposite Mappo and tore off a mouthful of the tender meat.
‘It occurs to me, of a sudden,’ Mappo said, a hint of a grin flickering across his bestial features, ‘that this chance encounter is unique . . . in ways too numerous to list. A Trell, a Jhag, and a Thelomen Toblakai . . . and we each are likely the only one of our respective kinds in all of Seven Cities. Even more extraordinary, I believe I know of you—by reputation only, of course. Sha’ik has a bodyguard . . . a Thelomen Toblakai, with an armoured vest made of petrified shells, and a wooden sword . . .’
Karsa nodded, swallowing down the last of the meat in his mouth before replying, ‘Aye, I am in the service of Sha’ik. Does this fact make you my enemy?’
‘Not unless you choose to be,’ Mappo answered, ‘and I would advise against that.’
‘So does everyone,’ Karsa muttered, returning to his meal.
‘Ah, so you are not as ignorant of us as you first said.’
‘A score of wolves spoke to
me,’ Karsa explained. ‘Little was said, barring the warning itself. I do not know what makes you two so dangerous, nor do I much care. Impede me in my journey and I will kill you. It is as simple as that.’
Mappo slowly nodded. ‘And have we cause to impede you?’
‘Not unless you choose to have,’ Karsa responded.
The Trell smiled. ‘Thus, it is best we learn nothing of each other, then.’
‘Aye, that would be best.’
‘Alas,’ Mappo sighed, ‘Icarium already knows all he needs to of you, and as to what he intends, while already decided, he alone knows.’
‘If he believes he knows me,’ Karsa growled, ‘he deceives himself.’
‘Well, let us consider the matter. On your shoulders is the fur of a Soletaken. One we both happen to know—you killed a formidable beast, there. Luckily, he was no friend of ours, but the measure of your martial prowess has been taken. Next, you are haunted by ghosts—not just the two kinsmen who even now hover behind you. But the ghosts of those you have slain in your short, but clearly terrible life. They are appallingly numerous, and their hatred for you is a palpable hunger. But who carries their dead in such a manner? Only one who has been cursed, I think. And I speak from long experience; curses are horrible things. Tell me, has Sha’ik ever spoken to you of convergence?’
‘No.’
‘When curses collide, you might say. Flaws and virtues, the many faces of fateful obsession, of singular purpose. Powers and wills are drawn together, as if one must by nature seek the annihilation of the other. Thus, you and Icarium are now here, and we are moments from a dreadful convergence, and it is my fate to witness. Helpless unto desperate madness. Fortunately for my own sake, I have known this feeling before.’
Karsa had been eating throughout Mappo’s words. Now he examined the bone in his hands, then tossed it aside, wiped his palms on the white bear fur of his cloak, and straightened. ‘What else have you and Icarium discovered about me, Mappo?’