He walked on, through the frozen memories that had begun to rot, there, within his reach, ever narrowing, ever closing in on the Jaghut.
The fissure was unexpected, a deep cleft slashing diagonally across his path. A soft, warm breath flowed from it, sweet with decay and disease. The ice lining its edges was bruised and pocked, riven with dark veins. Halting before it, Gethol quested with his senses. He hissed in recognition. 'You have not been idle, have you? What is this invitation you set before me? I am of this world, whilst you, stranger, are not.'
He moved to step past it, his torn lips twisting into a snarl. Then stopped, head slowly turning. 'I am no longer Hood's Herald,' he whispered. 'Dismissed. A flawed service. Unacceptable. What would you say to me, Chained One?'
There would be no answer, until the decision was made, until the journey's end.
Gethol entered the fissure.
The Crippled God had fashioned a small tent around his place of chaining, the Jaghut saw with some amusement. Broken, shattered, oozing with wounds that never healed, here then was the true face of vanity.
Gethol halted before the entrance. He raised his voice. 'Dispense with the shroud—I shall not crawl to you.'
The tent shimmered, then dissolved, revealing a robed, hooded, shapeless figure sitting on damp clay. A brazier lifted veils of smoke between them, and a mangled hand reached out to fan the sweet tendrils into the hood-shadowed face. 'A most,' the Chained One said in a wheeze, 'a most devastating kiss. Your sudden lust for vengeance was… felt, Jaghut. Your temper endangered Hood's meticulous plans, you see that, do you not? It was this that so… disappointed the Lord of Death. His Herald must be obedient. His Herald must possess no personal desires, no ambitions. Not a worthy… employer … for one such as you.'
Gethol glanced around. 'There is heat beneath me. We chained you to Burn's flesh, anchored you to her bones—and you have poisoned her.'
'I have. A festering thorn in her side… that shall one day kill her. And with Burn's death, this world shall die. Her heart cold, lifeless, will cease its life-giving bounty. These chains must be broken, Jaghut.'
Gethol laughed. 'All worlds die. I shall not prove the weak link, Crippled God. I was here for the Chaining, after all.'
'Ah,' the creature hissed, 'but you are the weak link. You ever were. You thought you could earn Hood's trust, and you failed. Not the first failure, either, as we both know. When your brother Gothos called upon you—'
'Enough! Who is the vulnerable one here?'
'We both are, Jaghut. We both are.' The god raised his hand again, waved it slowly between them. Lacquered, wooden cards appeared, suspended in the air, their painted images facing Gethol. 'Behold,' the Crippled God whispered, 'the House of Chains…'
The Jaghut's lone functioning eye narrowed. 'What—what have you done?'
'No longer an outsider, Gethol. I would… join the game. And look more carefully. The role of Herald is… vacant.'
Gethol grunted. 'More than just the Herald…'
'Indeed, these are early days. Who, I wonder, will earn the right of King in my House? Unlike Hood, you see, I welcome personal ambition. Welcome independent thought. Even acts of vengeance.'
'The Deck of Dragons will resist you, Chained One. Your House will be… assailed.'
'It was ever thus. You speak of the Deck as an entity, but its maker is dust, as we both know. There is no-one who can control it. Witness the resurrection of the House of Shadows. A worthy precedent. Gethol, I have need of you. I embrace your… flaws. None among my House of Chains shall be whole, in flesh or in spirit. Look upon me, look upon this broken, shattered figure—my House reflects what you see before you. Now cast your gaze upon the world beyond, the nightmare of pain and failure that is the mortal realm. Very soon, Gethol, my followers shall be legion. Do you doubt that? Do you?'
The Jaghut was silent for a long time, then he growled, 'The House of Chains has found its Herald. What would you have me do?'
'I've lost my mind,' Murillio muttered, but he threw the bones none the less. The carved phalanges bounced and rolled, then came to a stop.
The Lord's Push, dear friend, alas for you but not for worthy self!' Kruppe cried, reaching out to gather the bones. 'And now Kruppe doubles the bid on a clear skid—ah, exquisite rhyme exquisitely delivered—ho!' The bones bounced, settled with unmarked sides facing up. 'Ha! Riches tumble upon Kruppe's ample lap! Gather them up, formidable wizard!'
Shaking his head, Quick Ben collected the finger bones. 'I've seen every cheat possible—the bad and the superb—but Kruppe, you continue to evade my sharpest eye.'
'Cheat? Gods forbid! What hapless victims are witness to on this night of nights is naught but cosmic sympathy for worthy Kruppe!'
'Cosmic sympathy?' Murillio snorted. 'What in Hood's name is that?'
'Euphemism for cheating,' Coll grumbled. 'Make your call, Quick, I'm eager to lose still more of my hard-earned coin.'
'It's this table,' Murillio said. 'It skews everything, and somehow Kruppe's found the pattern—don't deny it, you block of cheesy lard.'
'Kruppe denies all things patently deniable, dearest companions. No pattern has yet formed, by way of sincerest assurance, for the principal in question has fled from his appointed role. Said flight naught but an illusion, of course, though the enforced delay in self-recognition may well have direst consequences. Fortunate for one and all, Kruppe is here with cogent regard—'
'Whatever,' Quick Ben cut in. 'Dark heart where it matters most and skull in the corner.'
'Bold wager, mysterious mage. Kruppe challenges treble with a true hand and not a nudge askew!'
The wizard snorted. 'Never seen one of those, ever. Not ever. Not once.' He sent the bones skidding across the table.
The polished finger bones came to a stop, arrayed in a spread hand, all the symbols and patterns revealing perfect alignment.
'And now, wondering wizard, you have! Kruppe's coffers overflow!'
Quick Ben stared at the skeletal hand on the table's battered surface.
'What's the point of this?' Coll sighed. 'Kruppe wins every cast. Not subtle, little man—a good cheat makes sure there's losses thrown in every now and then.'
'Thus Kruppe's true innocence is displayed! A cheat of successive victories would be madness indeed—no, this sympathy is true and well beyond Kruppe's control.'
'How did you do that?' Quick Ben whispered.
Kruppe removed a mottled silk handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped his brow. 'Warrens suddenly abound, licking the air with invisible flames, aah! Kruppe withers beneath such scrutiny—mercy, Kruppe begs you, malicious mage!'
Quick Ben leaned back, glanced over to where Whiskeyjack sat apart from the others, his back to the tent wall, his eyes half closed. 'There's something there—I swear it—but I can't pin him down. He's slippery—gods, he's slippery!'
Whiskeyjack grunted. 'Give it up,' he advised, grinning. 'You won't catch him, I suspect.'
The mage swung on Kruppe. 'You are not what you seem—'
'Oh but he is,' Coll interjected. 'Look at him. Greasy, slimy, slick like one giant hairy ball of buttered eel. Kruppe is precisely as he seems, trust me. Look at the sudden sweat on his brow, the boiled lobster face, the bugged-out eyes—look at him squirm! That's Kruppe, every inch of him!'
'Abashed, is Kruppe! Cruel scrutiny! Kruppe crumbles beneath such unwarranted attention!'
They watched as the man wrung out the handkerchief, their eyes widening at the torrent of oily water that poured from it to pool on the tabletop.
Whiskeyjack barked a laugh. 'He has you all in his belt-pouch, even now! Squirm, is it? Sweat? All an illusion.'
'Kruppe buckles under such perceptive observations! He wilts, melts, dissolves into a blubbering fool!' He paused, then leaned forward and gathered in his winnings. 'Kruppe is thirsty. Does any wine remain in that smudged jug, he wonders? Yet more than that, Kruppe wonders what has brought Korlat to the tent's entrance here in the dead of night,
with one and all exhausted by yet another day of interminable marching?'
The flap was drawn back and the Tiste Andü woman stepped into the lantern light. Her violet eyes found Whiskeyjack. 'Commander, my lord requests the pleasure of your company.'
Whiskeyjack raised his brows. 'Now? Very well, I accept the invitation.' He rose slowly, favouring his bad leg.
'I'll figure you out yet,' Quick Ben said, glaring at Kruppe.
'Kruppe denies the existence of elusive complexity regarding self, worrisome wizard. Simplicity is Kruppe's mistress—in joyful conspiracy with his dear wife, Truth, of course. Long and loyal in allegiance, this happy threesome—'
He was still talking as Whiskeyjack left the tent and walked with Korlat towards the Tiste Andü encampment. After a few minutes, the commander glanced at the woman beside him. 'I would have thought your lord would have departed by now—he's not been seen for days.'
'He will remain in our company for a time,' Korlat said. 'Anomander Rake has little patience for staff meetings and the like. Crone keeps him informed of developments.'
'Then I am curious—what would he have of me?'
She smiled slightly. 'That is for my lord to reveal, Commander.'
Whiskeyjack fell silent.
The Knight of Dark's tent was indistinguishable from all the other tents of the Tiste Andü, unguarded and a little more than halfway down a row, weakly lit from within by a single lantern. Korlat halted before the flap. 'My escort is done. You may enter, Commander.'
He found Anomander Rake seated in a leather-backed folding camp chair, his long legs stretched out before him. An empty matching chair was opposite, and set to one side within reach of both was a small table on which sat a carafe of wine and two goblets.
'Thank you for coming,' the Knight of Dark said. 'Please, make yourself comfortable.'
Whiskeyjack settled into the chair.
Rake leaned forward and filled the two goblets, passed one over to the commander who accepted it gratefully. 'With the proper perspective,' the Tiste Andü said, 'even a mortal life can seem long. Fulfilling. What I contemplate at the moment is the nature of happenstance. Men and women who, for a time, find themselves walking in step, on parallel paths. Whose lives brush close, howsoever briefly, and are so changed by the chance contact.'
Whiskeyjack studied the man opposite him through half-closed eyes. 'I don't view change as particularly threatening, Lord.'
'Rake will suffice. To your point, I agree… more often than not. There is tension among the command, of which I am sure you are fully aware.'
The Malazan nodded.
Rake's veiled eyes sharpened on Whiskeyjack's for a moment, then casually slid away once more. 'Concerns. Long-bridled ambitions now straining. Rivalries old and new. The situation has the effect of… separating. Each and every one of us, from all the others. Yet, if we abide, the calm return of instinct makes itself heard once more, whispering of… hope.' The extraordinary eyes found the commander once again, a contact just as brief as the first.
Whiskeyjack drew a slow, silent breath. 'The nature of this hope?'
'My instincts—at the instant when lives brush close, no matter how momentary—inform me who is worthy of trust. Ganoes Paran, for example. We first met on this plain, not too far from where we are now camped. A tool of Oponn, moments from death within the jaws of Shadowthrone's Hounds. A mortal, his every loss written plain, there in his eyes. Living or dying, his fate meant nothing to me. Yet…'
'You liked him.'
Rake smiled, sipped wine. 'Aye, an accurate summation.'
There was silence, then, that stretched as the two men sat facing each other. After a long while, Whiskeyjack slowly straightened in his chair, a quiet realization stealing through him. 'I imagine,' he finally said, studying the wine in his goblet, 'Quick Ben has you curious.'
Anomander Rake cocked his head. 'Naturally,' he replied, revealing faint surprise and questioning in his tone.
'I first met him in Seven Cities… the Holy Desert Raraku, to be more precise,' Whiskeyjack said, leaning forward to refill both goblets, then settling back before continuing. 'It's something of a long tale, so I hope you can be patient.'
Rake half smiled his reply.
'Good. I think it will be worth it.' Whiskeyjack's gaze wandered, found the lantern hanging from a pole, settled on its dim, flaring gold flame. 'Quick Ben. Adaephon Delat, a middling wizard in the employ of one of the Seven Holy Protectors during an abortive rebellion that originated in Aren. Delat and eleven other mages made up the Protector's cadre. Our besieging army's own sorcerers were more than their match—Bellurdan, Nightchill, Tayschrenn, A'Karonys, Tesormalandis, Stumpy—a formidable gathering known for their brutal execution of the Emperor's will. Well, the city the Protector was holed up in was breached, the walls sundered, slaughter in the streets, the madness of battle gripped us all. Dassem struck down the Holy Protector—Dassem and his band of followers he called his First Sword—they chewed their way through the enemy ranks. The Protector's cadre, seeing the death of their master and the shattering of the army, fled. Dassem ordered my company in pursuit, out into the desert. Our guide was a local, a man recently recruited into our own Claw
Kalam Mekhar's broad, midnight face glistened with sweat. Whiskeyjack watched as the man twisted in the saddle, watched the wide shoulders shrug beneath the dusty, stained telaba.
'They remain together,' the guide rumbled. 'I would have thought they'd split… and force you to do the same. Or to choose among them, Commander. The trail leads out, sir, out into Raraku's heart.'
'How far ahead?' Whiskeyjack asked.
'Half a day, no more. And on foot.'
The commander squinted out into the desert's ochre haze. Seventy soldiers rode at his back, a cobbled-together collection of marines, engineers, infantry and cavalry; each from squads that had effectively ceased to exist. Three years of sieges, set battles and pursuits for most of them. They were what Dassem Ultor judged could be spared, and, if necessary, sacrificed.
'Sir,' Kalam said, cutting into his thoughts. 'Raraku is a holy desert. A place of power
'Lead on,' Whiskeyjack growled.
Dust-devils swirled random paths across the barren, wasted plain. The troop rode at a trot with brief intervals of walking. The sun climbed higher in the sky. Somewhere behind them, a city still burned, yet before them they saw an entire landscape that seemed lit by fire.
The first corpse was discovered early in the afternoon. Curled, a ragged, scorched telaba fluttering in the hot wind, and beneath it a withered figure, head tilted skyward, eye sockets hollowed pits. Kalam dismounted and was long in examining the body. Finally, he rose and faced Whiskeyjack. 'Kebharla, I think. She was more a scholar than a mage, a delver of mysteries. Sir, there's something odd—'
'Indeed?' the commander drawled. He leaned forward in his saddle, studied the corpse. 'Apart from the fact that she looks like she died a hundred years ago, what do you find odd, Kalam?'
The man's face twisted in a scowl.
A soldier chuckled behind Whiskeyjack.
'Will that funny man come forward, please,' the commander called out without turning.
A rider joined him. Thin, young, an ornate, oversized Seven Cities helmet on his head. 'Sir!' the soldier said.
Whiskeyjack stared at him. 'Gods, man, lose that helm—you'll cook your brains. And the fiddle—the damned thing's broken anyway.'
'The helmet's lined with cold-sand, sir.'
'With what?'
'Cold-sand. Looks like shaved filings, sir, but you could throw a handful into a fire and it won't get hot. Strangest thing, sir.'
The commander's eyes narrowed on the helmet. 'By the Abyss, the Holy Protector wore that!'
The man nodded solemnly. 'And when Dassem's sword clipped it, it went flying, sir. Right into my arms.'
'And the fiddle followed?'
The soldier's eyes thinned suspiciously. 'No, sir. The fiddle's mine. Bought it in Malaz City, planned on lea
rning how to play it.'
'So who put a fist through it, soldier?'
'That would be Hedge, sir—that man over there beside Picker.'
'He can't play the damn thing!' the soldier in question shouted over.
'Well I can't now, can I? It's broke. But once the war's done I'll get it fixed, won't I?'
Whiskeyjack sighed. 'Return to your position, sir Fiddler, and not another sound from you, understood?'
'One thing, sir. I got a bad feeling… about… about all of this.'
'You're not alone in that, soldier.'
'Well, uh, it's just that—'
'Commander!' the soldier named Hedge called out, nudging his mount forward. 'The lad's hunches, sir, they ain't missed yet. He told Sergeant Nubber not to drink from that jug, but Nubber did anyway, and now he's dead, sir.'
'Poisoned?'
'No, sir. A dead lizard. Got stuck in his throat. Nubber choked to death on a dead lizard! Hey, Fiddler—a good name, that. Fiddler. Hah!'
'Gods,' Whiskeyjack breathed. 'Enough.' He faced Kalam again. 'Ride on.'
The man nodded, climbed back in his saddle.
Eleven mages on foot, without supplies, fleeing across a lifeless desert, the hunt should have been completed quickly. Late in the afternoon they came upon another body, as shrivelled as the first one; then, with the sun spreading crimson on the west horizon, a third corpse was found on the trail. Directly ahead, half a league distant, rose the bleached, jagged teeth of limestone cliffs, tinted red with the sunset. The trail of the surviving wizards, Kalam informed the commander, led towards them.
The horses were exhausted, as were the soldiers. Water was becoming a concern. Whiskeyjack called a halt, and camp was prepared.
After the meal, and with soldiers stationed at pickets, the commander joined Kalam Mekhar at the hearth.
The assassin tossed another brick of dung onto the flames, then checked the water in the battered pot suspended by a tripod over the fire. 'The herbs in this tea will lessen the loss of water come the morrow,' the Seven Cities native rumbled. 'I'm lucky to have it—it's rare and getting rarer. Makes your piss thick as soup, but short. You'll still sweat, but you need that—'