The hallway stretched away before them, a wide colonnade lined by twin columns that were nothing less than the trunks of cedars. Each bole was at least an arm-span in diameter. The shaggy, gouged bark remained, although most of it had fallen away and now lay scattered over the floor.
Mappo laid a hand on one wooden pillar. 'Imagine the effort of bringing these down here.'
'Warren,' Icarium said, sniffing. 'The residue remains, even after all these centuries.'
'After centuries? Can you sense which warren, Icarium?'
'Kurald Galain. Elder, the Warren of Darkness.'
'Tiste Andü? In all the histories of Seven Cities that I am aware of, I've never heard mention of Tiste Andü present on this continent. Nor in my homeland, on the other side of the Jhag Odhan. Are you certain? This does not make sense.'
'I am not certain, Mappo. It has the feel of Kurald Galain, that is all. The feel of Dark. It is not Omtose Phellack nor Tellann. Not Starvald Demelain. I know of no other Elder Warrens.'
'Nor I.'
Without another word the three began walking.
By Mappo's count, the hallway ended three hundred and thirty paces later, opening out into another octagonal chamber, this one with its floor raised a hand's width higher than that of the hallway. Each flagstone was also octagonal, and on each of them images had been intricately carved, then defaced with gouges and scoring in what seemed entirely random, frenzied destruction.
The Trell felt his hackles stiffening into a ridge on his neck as he stood at the room's threshold. Icarium was beside him.
'I do not,' the Jhag said, 'suggest we enter this chamber.'
Mappo grunted agreement. The air stank of sorcery, old, stale and clammy and dense with power. Like waves of heat, magic bled from the flagstones, from the images carved upon them and the wounds many of those images now bore.
Icarium was shaking his head. 'If this is Kurald Galain, its flavour is unknown to me. It is… corrupted.'
'By the defilement?'
'Possibly. Yet the stench from those claw marks differs from what rises from the flagstones themselves. Is it familiar to you? By Dessembrae's mortal tears it should be, Mappo.'
The Trell squinted down at the nearest flagstone bearing scars. His nostrils flared. 'Soletaken. D'ivers. The spice of shapeshifters. Of course.' He barked out a savage laugh that echoed in the chamber. 'The Path of Hands, Icarium. The gate—it's here.'
'More than a gate, I think,' Icarium said. 'Look upon the undamaged carvings—what do they remind you of?'
Mappo had an answer to that. He scanned the array with growing certainty, but the realization it offered held no answers, only more questions. 'I see the likeness, yet there is an… unlikeness, as well. Even more irritating, I can think of no possible linkage…'
'No such answers here,' Icarium said. 'We must go to the place we first intended to find, Mappo. We approach comprehension—I am certain of that.'
'Icarium, do you think Iskaral Pust is preparing for more visitors? Soletaken and D'ivers, the imminent opening of the gate. Is he—and by extension Shadow Realm—the very heart of this convergence?'
'I do not know. Let's ask him.'
They stepped back from the threshold.
'We approach comprehension.' Three words evoking terror within Mappo. He felt like a hare in a master archer's sights, each direction of flight so hopeless as to leave him frozen in place. He stood at the side of powers that staggered his mind, power past and powers present. The Nameless Ones, with their charges and hints and visions, their cowled purposes and shrouded desires. Creatures of fraught antiquity, if the Trellish legends held any glimmer of truth. And Icarium, oh, dear friend, I can tell you nothing. My curse is silence to your every question, and the hand I offer as a brother will lead you only into deceit. In love's name, I do this, at my own cost… and such a cost.
The bhok'arala awaited them at the stairs and followed the two men at a discreet distance up to the main level.
They found the High Priest in the vestibule he had converted into his sleeping chamber. Muttering to himself, Iskaral Pust was filling a wicker rubbish container with rotted fruit, dead bats and mangled rhizan. He threw Mappo and Icarium a scowl over one shoulder as they stood at the room's entrance.
'If those squalid apes are following you, let them 'ware my wrath,' Iskaral hissed. 'No matter which chamber I choose, they insist on using it as repository for their foul leavings. I have lost patience! They mock a High Priest of Shadow at their peril!'
'We have found the gate,' Mappo said.
Iskaral did not pause in his cleaning. 'Oh, you have, have you? Fools! Nothing is as it seems. A life given for a life taken. You have explored every corner, every cranny, have you? Idiots! Such overconfident bluster is the banner of ignorance. Wave it about and expect me to cower? Hah. I have my secrets, my plans, my schemes. Iskaral Fust's maze of genius cannot be plumbed by the likes of you. Look at you two. Both ancient wanderers of this mortal earth. Why have you not ascended like the rest of them?
'I'll tell you. Longevity does not automatically bestow wisdom. Oh no, not at all. I trust you are killing every spider you spy. You had better be, for it is the path to wisdom. Oh yes indeed, the path!
'Bhok'arala have small brains. Tiny brains inside their tiny round skulls. Cunning as rats, with eyes like glittering black stones. Four hours, once, I stared into one's eyes, he into mine. Never once pulling gaze away, oh no, this was a contest and one I would not lose. Four hours, face to face, so close I could smell his foul breath and he mine. Who would win? It was in the lap of the gods.'
Mappo glanced at Icarium, then cleared his throat. 'And who, Iskaral Pust, won this… this battle of wits?'
Iskaral Pust fixed a pointed stare on Mappo. 'Look upon him who does not waver from his cause, no matter how insipid and ultimately irrelevant, and you shall find in him the meaning of dull-witted. The bhok'aral could have stared into my eyes for ever, for there was no intelligence behind them. Behind his eyes, I mean. It was proof of my superiority that I found distraction elsewhere.'
'Do you intend to lead the D'ivers and Soletaken to the gate below, Iskaral Pust?'
'Blunt are the Trell, determined in headlong stumbling and headlong in stumbling determination. As I said. You know nothing of the mysteries involved, the plans of Shadowthrone, the many secrets of the Grey Keep, the Shrouded House where stands the Throne of Shadow. Yet I do. I, alone among all mortals, have been shown the truth arrayed before me. My god is generous, my god is wise, as cunning as a rat. Spiders must die. The bhok'arala have stolen my broom and this quest I set before you two guests. Icarium and Mappo Trell, famed wanderers of the world, I charge you with this perilous task—find me my broom.'
Out in the hallway, Mappo sighed. 'Well, that was fruitless. What shall we do now, friend?'
Icarium looked surprised. 'It should be obvious, Mappo. We must take on this perilous quest. We must find Iskaral Fust's broom.'
'We have explored this monastery, Icarium,' the Trell said wearily. 'I noticed no broom.'
The Jhag's mouth quirked slightly. 'Explored? Every corner, every cranny? I think not. Our first task, however, is to the kitchen. We must outfit ourselves for our impending explorations.'
'You are serious.'
'I am.'
The flies were biting in the heat, as foul-tempered as everything else beneath the blistering sun. People filled Hissar's fountains until midday, crowded shoulder to shoulder in the tepid, murky waters, before retiring to the cooler shade of their homes. It was not a day for going outside, and Duiker found himself scowling as he drew on a loose, thinly woven telaba while Bult waited by the door.
'Why not under the moon,' the historian muttered. 'Cool night air, stars high overhead with every spirit looking down. Now that would ensure success!'
Bull's sardonic grin did not help matters. Strapping on his rope belt, Duiker turned to the grizzled commander. 'Very well, lead on, Uncle.'
The Wickan's grin widened,
deepening the scar until it seemed he had two smiles instead of one.
Outside, Kulp waited with the mounts, astride his own small, sturdy-looking horse. Duiker found the cadre mage's glum expression perversely pleasing.
They rode through almost empty streets. It was marrok: early afternoon, when sane people retired indoors to wait out the worst of the summer heat. The historian had grown accustomed to napping during marrok; he was feeling grumpy, all too out of sorts to attend Sormo's ritual. Warlocks were notorious for their impropriety, their deliberate discom-bobulating of common sense. For the defence of decency alone, the Empress might be excused the executions. He grimaced—clearly not an opinion to be safely voiced within hearing range of any Wickans.
They reached the city's northern end and rode out on a coastal track for half a league before swinging inland, into the wastes of the Odhan. The oasis they approached an hour later was dead, the spring long since dried up. All that remained of what had once been a lush, natural garden amidst the sands was a stand of withered, gnarled cedars rising from a carpet of tumbled palms.
Many of the trees bore strange projections that drew Duiker's curiosity as they led their horses closer.
'Are those horns in the trees?' Kulp asked.
'Bhederin, I think,' the historian replied. 'Jammed into a fork, then grown past, leaving them embedded deep in the wood. These trees were likely a thousand years old before the water vanished.'
The mage grunted. 'You'd think they'd be cut down by now, this close to Hissar."
'The horns are warnings,' Bult said. 'Holy ground. Once, long ago. Memories remain.'
'As well they should,' Duiker muttered. 'Sormo should be avoiding hallowed sand, not seeking it out. If this place is aspected, it's likely an inimical one to a Wickan warlock.'
'I've long since learned to trust Sormo E'nath's judgement, Historian. You'd do well to learn the like.'
'It's a poor scholar who trusts anyone's judgement,' Duiker said. 'Even and perhaps especially his own.'
'"You walk shifting sands,"' Bult sighed, then gave him another grin, 'as the locals would say.'
'What would you Wickans say?' Kulp asked.
Bult's eyes glittered with mischief. 'Nothing. Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck, of course. This truth a Wickan knows from the time he first learns to ride—long before he learns to walk.'
They found the warlock in a clearing. The drifts of sand had been swept aside, revealing a heaved and twisted brick floor—all that remained of a structure of some sort. Chips of obsidian glittered in the joins.
Kulp dismounted, eyeing Sormo who stood in the centre, hands hidden within heavy sleeves. He swatted at a fly. 'What's this, then, some lost, forgotten temple?'
The young Wickan slowly blinked. 'My assistants concluded it had been a stable. They then left without elaborating.'
Kulp scowled at Duiker. 'I despise Wickan humour,' he whispered.
Sormo gestured them closer. 'It is my intention to open myself to the sacred aspect of this kheror, which is the name Wickans give to holy places open to the skies—
'Are you mad?' Kulp's face had gone white. 'Those spirits will rip your throat out, child. They are of the Seven—'
'They are not,' the warlock retorted. 'The spirits in this kheror were raised in the time before the Seven. They are the land's own and if you must liken them to a known aspect, then it must be Tellann.'
'Hood's mercy,' Duiker groaned. 'If it is indeed Tellann, then you will be dealing with T'lan Imass, Sormo. The undead warriors have turned their backs on the Empress and all that is the Empire, ever since the Emperor's assassination.'
The warlock's eyes were bright. 'And have you not wondered why?'
The historian's mouth snapped shut. He had theories in that regard, but to voice them—to anyone—would be treason.
Kulp's dry question to Sormo broke through Duiker's thoughts. 'And has Empress Laseen tasked you with this? Are you here to seek a sense of future events or is that just a feint?'
Bult had stood a few paces from them saying nothing, but now he spat. 'We need no seer to guess that, Mage.'
The warlock raised his arms out to his sides. 'Stay close,' he said to Kulp, then his eyes slid to the historian. 'And you, see and remember all you will witness here.'
'I am already doing so, Warlock.'
Sormo nodded, closed his eyes.
His power spread like a faint, subtle ripple, sweeping over Duiker and the others to encompass the entire clearing. Daylight faded abruptly, replaced by a soft dusk, the dry air suddenly damp and smelling of marshlands.
Ringing the glade like sentinels were cypresses. Mosses hung from branches in curtains, hiding what lay beyond in impenetrable shadow.
Duiker could feel Sormo E'nath's sorcery like a warm cloak; he had never before felt a power such as this one. Calm and protective, strong yet yielding. He wondered at the Empire's loss in exterminating these warlocks. An error she's clearly corrected, though it might well be too late. How many warlocks were lost in truth?
Sormo loosed an ululating cry that echoed as if they stood within a vast cavern.
The next moment the air was alive with icy winds, arriving in warring gusts. Sormo staggered, his eyes now open and widening with alarm. He drew a breath, then visibly recoiled at the taste and Duiker could not blame him. Bestial stench rode the winds, growing fouler by the moment.
Taut violence filled the glade, a sure promise announced in the sudden thrashing of the moss-laden branches. The historian saw a swarming cloud approach Bult from behind and shouted a warning. The Wickan whirled, long-knives in his hands. He screamed as the first of the wasps stung.
'D'ivers!' Kulp bellowed, one hand grasping Duiker's telaba and pulling the historian back to where Sormo stood as if dazed.
Rats scampered over the soft ground, shrilly screaming as they attacked a writhing bundle of snakes.
The historian felt heat on his legs, looked down. Fire ants swarmed him up to his thighs. The heat rose to agony. He screamed.
Swearing, Kulp unleashed his warren in a pulse of power. Shrivelled ants fell from the historian's legs like dust. The attacking swarm flinched back, the D'ivers retreating.
The rats had overrun the snakes and now closed in on Sormo. The Wickan frowned at them.
Off where Bult crouched slapping futilely at the stinging wasps, liquid fire erupted in a swath, the flames tumbling over the veteran.
Tracking back to the fire's source, Duiker saw that an enormous demon had entered the clearing. Midnight-skinned and twice the height of a man, the creature voiced a roar of fury and launched a savage attack on a white-furred bear—the glade was alive with D'ivers and Soletaken, the air filled with shrieks and snarls. The demon landed on the bear, driving it to the ground with a snap and crunch of bones. Leaving the animal twitching, the black demon leapt to one side and roared a second time, and this time Duiker heard meaning within it.
'It's warning us!' he shouted at Kulp.
Like a lodestone the demon's arrival drew the D'ivers and Soletaken. They fought each other in a frenzied rush to attack the creature.
'We have to get out of here!' Duiker said. 'Pull us out, Kulp—now!'
The mage hissed in rage. 'How? This is Sormo's ritual, you damned book-grub!'
The demon vanished beneath a mob of creatures, yet clearly remained upright, as the D'ivers and Soletaken clambered up what seemed a solid pillar of stone. Black-skinned arms appeared, flinging away dead and dying creatures. But it could not last.
'Hood take you, Kulp! Think of something!'
The mage's face tightened. 'Drag Bult to Sormo. Quickly! Leave the warlock to me.' With that, Kulp bolted to Sormo, shouting in an effort to wake the youth from whatever spell held him. Duiker spun to where Bult lay huddled five paces away. His legs felt impossibly heavy beneath the prickling pain of the ant bites as he staggered to the Wickan.
The veteran had been stung scores of times, his flesh w
as misshapen with fiery swelling. He was unconscious, possibly dead. Duiker gripped the man's harness and dragged him to where Kulp continued accosting Sormo E'nath.
As the historian arrived, the demon gave one last shriek, then disappeared beneath the mound of attackers. The D'ivers and Soletaken then surged towards the four men.
Sormo E'nath was oblivious, his eyes glazed, unheeding of the mage's efforts to shout him into awareness.
'Wake him or we're dead,' Duiker gasped, stepping over Bult to face the charging beasts with naught but a small knife.
The weapon would little avail him as a seething cloud of hornets swiftly closed the distance.
The scene was jolted, and Duiker saw they were back in the dead oasis. The D'ivers and Soletaken were gone. The historian turned to Kulp. 'You did it! How?'
The mage glanced down at a sprawled, moaning Sormo E'nath. 'I'll pay for it,' he muttered, then met Duiker's eyes. 'I punched the lad. Damn near broke my hand doing it, too. It was his nightmare, wasn't it?'
The historian blinked, then shook himself and crouched down beside Bult. 'This poison will kill him long before we can get help—'
Kulp squatted, ran his good hand over the veteran's swollen face. 'Not poison. More like an infecting warren. I can deal with this, Duiker. As with your legs.' He closed his eyes in concentration.
Sormo E'nath slowly pushed himself into sitting position. He looked around, then tenderly touched his jaw, where the ridged imprint of Kulp's knuckles stood like puckered islands in a spreading flush of red.
'He had no choice,' Duiker told him.
The warlock nodded.
'Can you talk? Any loose teeth?'
'Somewhere,' he said clearly, 'a crow flaps broken-winged on the ground. There are but ten left.'
'What happened there, Warlock?'
Sormo's eyes flicked nervously. 'Something unexpected, Historian. A convergence is underway. The Path of Hands. The gate of the Soletaken and the D'ivers. An unhappy coincidence.'