'I know,' Whiskeyjack interjected. 'We've been on this damned continent long enough to learn a few things, Clawleader.'
The man glanced over at the settling soldiers. 'I keep forgetting that, Commander. You're allso… young.'
'As young as you, Kalam Mekhar.'
'And what have I seen of the world, sir? Scant little. Bodyguard to a Holy Falah in Aren—'
'Bodyguard? Why mince words? You were his private assassin.'
'My journey has just begun, is what I was trying to say, sir. You—your soldiers—what you've seen, what you've been through…' He shook his head. 'It's all there, in your eyes.'
Whiskeyjack studied the man, the silence stretching.
Kalam removed the pot and poured out two cups of the medicinal-smelling brew, handed one up to the commander. 'We'll catch up with them tomorrow.'
'Indeed. We've ridden steady the day through, twice the pace of a soldier's jog. How much distance have we closed with these damned mages? A bell's worth? Two? No more than two. They're using warrens'
The assassin, frowning, slowly shook his head. 'Then I would have lost the trail, sir. Once they entered a warren, all signs of them would have vanished.'
'Yes. Yet the footprints lead on, unbroken. Why is that?'
Kalam squinted into the fire. 'I don't know, sir.'
Whiskeyjack drained the bitter tea, dropped the tin cup to the ground beside the assassin, then strode away.
Day followed day, the pursuit taking them through the battered ravines, gorges and arroyos of the hills. More bodies were discovered, desiccated figures that Kalam identified one after another: Renisha, a sorceror of High Meanas; Keluger, a Septime Priest of D'riss, the Worm of Autumn; Narkal, the warrior-mage, sworn to Fener and aspirant to the god's Mortal Sword; Ullan, the Soletaken priestess of Soliel.
Deprivation took its toll on the hunters. Horses died, were butchered and eaten. The surviving beasts thinned, grew gaunt. Had not the mages' trail led Kalam and the others unerringly to one hidden spring after another, everyone would have died, there in Raraku's relentless wasteland.
Set'alahd Crool, a Jhag half-blood who'd once driven Dassem Vltor back a half-dozen steps in furious counterattack, his sword ablaze with the blessing of some unknown ascendant; Etra, a mistress of the Rashan warren; Birith'erah, mage of the Sere warren who could pull storms down from the sky; Gellid, witch of the Tennes warren…
And now but one remained, ever ahead, elusive, his presence revealed only by the light footprints he left behind.
The hunters were embraced in silence, now. Raraku's silence. Tempered, honed, annealed under the sun. The horses beneath them were their match, lean and defiant, tireless and wild-eyed.
Whiskeyjack was slow to understand what he saw in Kalam's face when the assassin looked upon him and his soldiers, slow to grasp that the killer's narrowed eyes held disbelief, awe, and more than a little fear. Yet Kalam himself had changed. He'd not travelled far from the land he called home, yet an entire world had passed beneath him.
Raraku had taken them all.
Up a steep, rocky channel, through an eroded fissure, the limestone walls stained and pitted, and out into a natural amphitheatre, and there, seated cross-legged on a boulder on the clearing's opposite side, waited the last mage.
He wore little more than rags, was emaciated, his dark skin cracked and peeling, his eyes glittering hard and brittle as obsidian.
Kalam's reining in looked to be a tortured effort. He managed to turn his horse round, met Whiskeyjack's eyes. 'Adaephon Delat, a mage of Meanas,' he said in a bone-dry rasp, his split lips twisting into a grin. 'He was never much, sir. I doubt he'll be able to muster a defence.'
Whiskeyjack said nothing. He angled his mount past the assassin, approached the wizard.
'One question,' the wizard asked, his voice barely a whisper yet carrying clearly across the amphitheatre.
'What?'
'Who in Hood's name are you?'
Whiskeyjack raised a brow. 'Does it matter?'
'We have crossed Raraku entire,' the wizard said. 'Other side of these cliffs is the trail leading down to G'danisban. You chased me across the Holy Desert… gods, no man is worth that. Not even me!'
'There were eleven others in your company, wizard.'
Adaephon Delat shrugged. 'I was the youngest—the healthiest—by far. Yet now, finally, even my body has given up. I can go no further.' His dark eyes reached past Whiskeyjack. 'Commander, your soldiers…'
'What of them?'
'They are more… and less. No longer what they once were. Raraku, sir, has burned the bridges of their pasts, one and all—it's all gone.' He met Whiskeyjack's eyes in wonder. 'And they are yours. Heart and soul. They are yours.'
'More than you realize,' Whiskeyjack said. He raised his voice. 'Hedge, Fiddler, are we in place?'
'Aye!' two voices chorused.
Whiskeyjack saw the wizard's sudden tension. After a moment, the commander twisted in his saddle. Kalam sat stiffly on his horse a dozen paces back, sweat streaming down his brow. Flanking him and slightly behind were Fiddler and Hedge, both with their crossbows trained on the assassin. Smiling, Whiskeyjack faced Adaephon Delat once again.
'You two have played an extraordinary game. Fiddler sniffed out the secret communications—the scuffed stone-faces, the postures of the bodies, the curled fingers—one, three, two, whatever was needed to complete the cipher—we could have cut this to a close a week past, but by then I'd grown… curious. Eleven mages. Once the first one revealed her arcane knowledge to you—knowledge she was unable to use—it was just a matter of bargaining. What choice did the others possess? Death by Raraku's hand, or mine. Or… a kind of salvation. But was it, after all? Do their souls clamour within you, now, Adaephon Delat? Screaming to escape their new prison? But I am left wondering, none the less. This game—you and Kalam—to what end?'
The illusion of deprivation slowly faded from the wizard, revealing a fit, hale young man. He managed a strained smile. 'The clamour has… subsided somewhat. Even the ghost of a life is better than Hood's embrace, Commander. We've achieved a… balance, you could say.'
'And you a host of powers unimagined.'
'Formidable, granted, but I've no desire to use them now. The game we played, Whiskeyjack? Only one of survival. At first. We didn't think you'd make it, to be perfectly honest. We thought Raraku would come to claim you—I suppose she did, in a way, though not in a way I would have anticipated. What you and your soldiers have become…' He shook his head.
'What we have become,' Whiskeyjack said, 'you have shared. You and Kalam.'
The wizard slowly nodded. 'Hence this fateful meeting. Sir, Kalam and I, we'll follow you, now. If you would have us.'
Whiskeyjack grunted. 'The Emperor will take you from me.'
'Only if you tell him, Commander.'
'And Kalam?' Whiskeyjack glanced back at the assassin.
'The Claw will be… displeased,' the man rumbled. Then he smiled. 'Too bad for Surly.'
Grimacing, Whiskeyjack twisted further to survey his soldiers. The array of faces could have been carved from stone. A company, culled from the army's cast-offs, now a bright, hard core. 'Gods,' he whispered under his breath, 'what have we made here?'
The first blood-letting engagement of the Bridgeburners was the retaking of G'danisban—a mage, an assassin, and seventy soldiers who swept into a rebel stronghold of four hundred desert warriors and crushed them in a single night.
The lantern's light had burned low, but the tent's walls revealed the dawn's gentle birth. The sounds of a camp awakening and preparing for the march slowly rose to fill the silence that followed Whiskeyjack's tale.
Anomander Rake sighed. 'Soul-shifting.'
'Aye.'
'I have heard of shifting one soul—sending it into a vessel prepared for it. But to shift eleven souls—eleven mages—into the already-occupied body of a twelfth…' He shook his head in disbelief. 'Brazen, indeed. I see now why Quick Ben requested I
probe him no further.' His eyes lifted. 'Yet here, this night, you unveil him. I did not ask—'
'To have asked, Lord, would have been a presumption,' Whiskeyjack said.
'Then you understood me.'
'Instinct,' the Malazan smiled. 'I trust mine as well, Anomander Rake.'
The Tiste Andü rose from the chair.
Whiskeyjack followed suit.
'I was impressed,' Rake said, 'when you stood ready to defend the child Silverfox.'
'And I was in turn impressed when you reined yourself in.'
'Yes,' the Knight of Dark muttered, eyes suddenly averted and a faint frown marring his brow. 'The mystery of the cherub…'
'Excuse me?'
The Tiste Andü smiled. 'I was recalling my first meeting with the one named Kruppe.'
'I am afraid, Lord, that Kruppe is one mystery for whom I can offer nothing in way of revelation. Indeed, I think that effort will likely defeat us all.'
'You may be right in that, Whiskeyjack.'
'Quick Ben leaves this morning, to join Paran and the Bridgeburners.'
Rake nodded. 'I shall endeavour to keep my distance, lest he grow nervous.' After a moment, the Tiste Andü held out his hand.
They locked wrists.
'A welcome evening just past,' Rake said.
Whiskeyjack grimaced. 'I'm not much for spinning entertaining tales. I appreciate your patience.'
'Perhaps I can redress the balance some other evening—I've a few stories of my own.'
'I'm sure you have,' Whiskeyjack managed.
They released their grips and the commander turned to the entrance.
Behind him, Rake spoke, 'One last thing. Silverfox need have nothing to fear from me. More, I will instruct Kallor accordingly.'
Whiskeyjack looked down at the ground for a moment. 'I thank you, Lord,' he breathed, then made his way out.
Gods below, I have made a friend this night. When did I last stumble on such a gift? I cannot remember. Hood's breath, I cannot.
Standing at the tent entrance, Anomander Rake watched the old man limp away down the track.
A soft patter of taloned feet approached from behind. 'Master,' Crone muttered, 'was that wise?'
'What do you mean?' he asked distractedly.
'There is a price for making friends among such short-lived mortals—as you well can attest from your own typically tragic memories.'
'Careful, hag.'
'Do you deny the truth of my words, Lord?'
'One can find precious value in brevity.'
The Great Raven cocked her head. 'Honest observation? Dangerous admonition? Twisted and all too unhappy wisdom? I doubt you'll elaborate. You won't, will you? You'll leave me wondering, pecking endlessly in fretful obsession! You pig!'
'Do you smell carrion on the wind, my dear? I swear I do. Why not go find it. Now. This instant. And once you have filled your belly, find Kallor and bring him to me.'
With a snarl the Great Raven leapt outside, wings spreading explosively, heaving the huge bird skyward.
'Korlat,' Rake murmured. 'Attend me, please.' He swung back to the tent's interior. Moments later Korlat arrived. Rake remained facing the back wall.
'Lord?'
'I shall depart for a short time. I feel the need for Silannah's comfort.'
'She will welcome your return, Lord.'
'A few days' absence, no more than that.'
'Understood.'
Rake faced her. 'Extend your protection to Silverfox.'
'I am pleased by the instruction.'
'Unseen watchers on Kallor as well. Should he err, call upon me instantly, but do not hesitate in commanding the full force of the Tiste Andü down upon him. At the very least, I can be witness to the gathering of his pieces.'
'The full force, Lord? We have not done so in a long, long time. Do you believe it will be necessary in destroying Kallor?'
'I cannot be sure, Korlat. Why risk otherwise?'
'Very well. I shall begin the preparation for our warrens' joining.'
'I see that it troubles you none the less.'
'There are eleven hundred Tiste Andü, Lord.'
'I am aware of that, Korlat.'
'At the Chaining, there were but forty of us, yet we destroyed the Crippled God's entire realm—granted, a nascent realm. None the less, Lord. Eleven hundred… we risk devastating this entire continent.'
Rake's eyes grew veiled. 'I would advise some restraint in the unleashing, Korlat, should it prove necessary to collectively release Kurald Galain. Brood would not be pleased. I suspect that Kallor will do nothing precipitous, in any case. These are all but precautions.'
'Understood.'
He turned back to the tent's interior. 'That will be all, Korlat.'
The Mhybe dreamed. Once more—after so long—she found herself wandering the tundra, the lichen and moss crunching underfoot as a dry wind swept over her, smelling of dead ice. She walked without aches, heard no rattle deep in her chest as she breathed the crisp air. She had returned, she realized, to the place of her daughter's birth.
Tellann's warren, a place not where, but when. The time of youth. For the world. For me.
She lifted her arms, saw their amber smoothness, the tendons and roped veins of her hands almost undiscernible beneath plump flesh.
I am young. I am as I should be.
Not a gift. No, this was torture. She knew she was dreaming; she knew what she would find when she awakened.
A small herd of some ancient, long-extinct beast rolled soft thunder through the hard earth beneath her moccasined feet, running parallel to the path she had chosen along a ridge, their humped backs appearing every now and then above the crest—a blurred flow of burnt umber. Something within her stirred, a quiet exultation to answer the majesty of those creatures.
Kin to the bhederin, only larger, with horns spreading out to the sides, massive, regal.
Glancing down, she paused in her steps. Footprints crossed her path. Hide-wrapped feet had punched through the brittle lichen. Eight, nine individuals.
Flesh and blood Imass? The Bonecaster Pran Chole and his companions? Who walks my dreamscape this time?
Her eyes blinked open to musty darkness. Dull pain wrapped her thinned bones. Gnarled hands drew the furs close to her chin against the chill. She felt her eyes fill with water, blinked up at the swimming, sloped ceiling of the hide tent, and released a slow, agonized breath.
'Spirits of the Rhivi,' she whispered, 'take me now, I beg you. An end to this life, please. Jaghan, Iruth, Mendalan, S'ren Tahl, Pahryd, Neprool, Manek, Ibindur—I name you all, take me, spirits of the Rhivi…'
The rattle of her breath, the stubborn beat of her heart… the spirits were deaf to her prayer. With a soft whimper, the Mhybe sat up, reached for her clothes.
She tottered out into misty light. The Rhivi camp was awakening around her. Off to one side she heard the low of the bhederin, felt the restless rumble through the ground, then the shouts of the tribe's youths returning from a night spent guarding the herd. Figures were emerging from the nearby tents, voices softly singing in ritual greeting of the dawn.
Iruth met inal barku sen netral… ah'rhitan! Iruth met inal…
The Mhybe did not sing. There was no joy within her for another day of life.
'Dear lass; I have just the thing for you.'
She turned at the voice. The Daru Kruppe was waddling down the path towards her, clutching a small wooden box in his pudgy hands.
She managed a wry smile. 'Forgive me if I hesitate at your gifts. Past experience…'
'Kruppe sees beyond the wrinkled veil, my dear. In all things. Thus, his midnight mistress is Faith—a loyal aide whose loving touch Kruppe deeply appreciates. Mercantile interests,' he continued, arriving to stand before her, his eyes on the box, 'yield happy, if unexpected gifts. Within this modest container awaits a treasure, which I offer to you, dear.'
'I have no use for treasures, Kruppe, though I thank you.'
'A history w
orth recounting, Kruppe assures you. In extending the tunnel network leading to and from the famed caverns of gaseous bounty beneath fair Darujhistan, hewn chambers were found here and there, the walls revealing each blow of countless antler picks, and upon said rippling surfaces glorious scenes from the distant past were found. Painted in spit and charcoal and haematite and blood and snot and Hood knows what else, but there was more. More indeed. Pedestals, carved in the fashion of rude altars, and upon these altars—these!'
He flipped back the lid of the box.
At first, the Mhybe thought she was looking upon a collection of flint blades, resting on strangely wrought bangles seemingly of the same fractious material. Then her eyes narrowed.
'Aye,' Kruppe whispered. 'Fashioned as if they were indeed flint. But no, they are copper. Cold-hammered, the ore gouged raw from veins in rock, flattened beneath pounding stones. Layer upon layer. Shaped, worked, to mirror a heritage.' His small eyes lifted, met the Mhybe's. 'Kruppe sees the pain of your twisted bones, my dear, and he grieves. These copper objects are not tools, but ornaments, to be worn about the body—you will find the blades have clasps suitable for a hide thong. You will find wristlets and anklets, arm-tores and… uh, necklets. There is efficacy in such items… to ease your aches. Copper, the first gift of the gods.'
Bemused at her own sentimentality, the Mhybe wiped the tears from her lined cheeks. 'I thank you, friend Kruppe. Our tribe retains the knowledge of copper's healing qualities. Alas, they are not proof against old age…'
The Daru's eyes flashed. 'Kruppe's story is not yet complete, lass.
'Scholars were brought down to those chambers, sharp minds devoted to the mysteries of antiquity. The altars, one for each each chamber… eight in all… individually aspected, the paintings displaying crude but undeniable images. Traditional representations. Eight caverns, each clearly identified. We know the hands that carved each of them—the artists identified themselves—and Darujhistan's finest seers confirmed the truth. We know, my dear, the names of those to whom these ornaments belonged.' He reached into the box and withdrew a blade. 'Jaghan.' He set it down and picked up an anklet. 'S'ren Tahl. And here, this small, childlike arrowhead… Manek, the Rhivi imp—a mocker, was he not? Kruppe feels an affinity with this trickster runt, Manek, oh yes. Manek, for all his games and deceits, has a vast heart, does he not? And here, this tore. Iruth, see its polish? The dawn's glow, captured here, in this beaten metal—'