She swung about. Baudin was studying the massive winged apparition cleaving the path ahead, his bandaged hand resting lightly on the carved rail. Whatever they rode rolled beneath them in a whispering surge. The oars still plied with remorseless patience, though it was clear that Silanda was moving more swiftly than anything muscle and bone could achieve—even when those muscles and bones were undead.
Look at us. A handful of destinies. We command nothing, not even our next step in this mad, fraught journey. The mage has his sorcery, the old soldier his stone sword and the other two their faith in the Tusked God. Heboric… Heboric has nothing. And as for me, I have pocks and scars. So much for our possessions.
'The beast prepares…"
She glanced over at Baudin. Oh yes, I forgot the thug. He has his secrets, for what that's worth, like as not scant little. 'Prepares what? Are you an expert in dragons as well?'
'Something's opening ahead—there's a change in the sky. See it?'
She did. The unrelieved grey pall had acquired a stain ahead, a smudge of brass that deepened, grew larger. A word to the mage, I think—
But even as she turned, the stain blossomed, filling half the sky. From somewhere far behind them came a howl of curdled outrage. Shadows sped across their path, tumbled to the sides as Silanda's prow clove through them. The dragon crooked its wings, vanishing into a blazing inferno of bronze fire.
Spinning, Baudin wrapped Felisin in his huge arms and ducked down around her as the fire swept over the ship. She heard his hiss as the flames engulfed them.
The dragon's found a warren… to sear the fleas from its hide!
She flinched as the flames licked around Baudin's protective mass. She could smell him burning—the leather shirt, the skin of his back, his hair. Her gasps drew agony into her lungs.
Then Baudin was running, carrying her effortlessly in his arms, leaping down the companionway to the main deck. Voices were shouting. Felisin caught a glimpse of Heboric—his tattoos wreathed in black smoke—staggering, striking the port rail, then plummeting over the ship's side.
Silanda burned.
Still running, Baudin plunged past the mainmast. Kulp lunged into view and grasped the thug's arms as he tried to scream something the roaring fires swept away. But Baudin had become a thing mindless in its pain. His arm flung outward, and the mage was hurled back through the flames.
Bellowing, Baudin lurched on, a blind, hopeless flight to the sterncastle. The marines had vanished—either incinerated or dying somewhere below decks. Felisin did not struggle. Seeing that no escape was possible, she almost welcomed the bites of fire that now came with increasing frequency.
She simply watched as Baudin carried her over the stern rail.
They fell.
The breath was knocked from her lungs as they struck hard-packed sand. Still clutched in an embrace, they rolled down a steep slope and came to rest amidst a pile of water-smoothed cobbles. The bronze fire was gone.
Dust settling around them, Felisin stared up at bright sunlight. Somewhere near her head flies buzzed, the sound so natural that she trembled—as if desperately held defensive walls were crumbling within her. We've returned. Home. She knew it with instinctive certainty.
Baudin groaned. Slowly he pushed himself away, the cobbles sliding and grating beneath him.
She looked at him. The hair was gone from his head, leaving a flash-burned pate the colour of mottled bronze. His leather shirt was nothing but stitched strips hanging down his broad back like fragments of charred webbing. If anything, the skin of his back was darker and more mottled than that of his head. The bandages on his hand were gone as well, revealing swollen fingers and bruised joints. Incredibly, his skin was not cracked, not split open; instead, he had the appearance of having been gilded. Tempered.
Baudin rose, slowly, each move aching with precision. She saw him blink, draw a deep breath. His eyes widened as he looked down at himself.
Notwhat you were expecting. The pain fades—I see it in your face—now only a memory. You've survived, but somehow … it all feels different. It feels. You feel.
Can nothing kill you, Baudin?
He glanced at her, then frowned.
'We're alive,' she said.
She followed suit when he clambered upright. They stood in a narrow arroyo, a gorge where flash floods had swept through with such force as to pack the bends of the channel with skull-sized rocks. The cut was less than five paces wide, the sides twice the height of a man and banded in variously coloured layers of sand.
The heat was fierce. Sweat ran in runnels down her back. 'Can you see anywhere we can climb out?' she asked.
'Can you smell Otataral?' Baudin muttered.
A chill wrapped her bones. We're back on the island—'No. Can you?'
He shook his head. 'Can't smell a damned thing. Just a thought.'
'Not a nice one,' she snapped. 'Let's find a way out.' You expect me to thank you for saving my life, don't you? You're waiting for even a single word, or maybe something as small as a look, a meeting of the eyes. You can wait for ever, thug.
They worked their way along the choked channel, surrounded by a whirring cloud of flies and their own echoes.
'I'm… heavier,' Baudin said after a few minutes.
She paused, glanced back at him. 'What?'
He shrugged. 'Heavier.' He kneaded his own arm with his uninjured hand. 'More solid. I don't know. Something's changed.'
Something's changed. She stared at him, the emotions within her twisting around unvoiced fears.
'I could've sworn I was burning away to bones,' he said, his frown deepening.
'I haven't changed,' she said, turning and continuing on. She heard him follow a moment later.
They found a side channel, a cleft where torrents of water had rushed down to join the main channel's course, cutting through the layers of sandstone. This track quickly lost its depth, opening out after twenty or so paces. They emerged onto the edge of a range of blunt hills overlooking a broad valley of cracked earth. More hills, sharper and ragged, rose on the other side, blurry behind waves of heat.
Five hundred paces out on the pan stood a figure. At its feet lay a humped shape.
'Heboric,' Baudin said, squinting. 'The one standing.'
And the other one? Dead or alive? And who?
They walked side by side towards the ex-priest, who now watched them. His clothing too had burned away to little more than charred rags. Yet his flesh, beneath that skein of tattooing, was unmarred.
As they neared, Heboric gestured towards his own bald pate. 'Suits you, Baudin,' he said with a wry grin.
'What?' Felisin's tone was caustic. 'Are you two a brotherhood now?'
The figure at the old man's feet was the mage, Kulp. Her gaze fell to him. 'Dead.'
'Not quite,' Heboric said. 'He'll live, but he hit something going over the side.'
'Awaken him, then," Felisin said. 'I don't plan on waiting in this heat just so he can get some beauty sleep. We're in a desert again, old man, in case you hadn't noticed. And desert means thirst, not to mention the fact that we're without food or anything like supplies. And finally, we've no idea where we are—
'On the mainland,' Heboric said. 'Seven Cities.'
'How do you know that?'
The ex-priest shrugged. 'I know.'
Kulp groaned, then sat upright. One hand gingerly probing a lump above his left eye, the mage looked around. His expression soured.
'The Seventh Army's camped just over yonder,' Felisin said.
For a moment he looked credulous, then he gave a weary smile. 'Funny, lass.' He climbed to his feet and scanned the horizon on all sides before tilting his head back and sniffing the air. 'Mainland,' he pronounced.
'Why didn't all that white hair burn off?' Felisin asked. 'You're not even singed.'
'That dragon's warren,' Heboric said, 'what was it?'
'Damned if I know,' Kulp admitted, running a hand through the white shock on his head as if to confirm
that it still existed. 'Chaos, maybe—a storm of it between warrens—I don't know. Never seen anything like it before, though that don't mean much—I'm no Ascendant, after all—'
'I'll say," Felisin muttered.
The mage squinted at her. 'Those pocks on your face are fading.'
This time it was she who was startled.
Baudin grunted.
She whirled on him. 'What's so funny?'
'I saw that, only it don't make you any prettier.'
'Enough of this,' Heboric said. 'It's midday, meaning it'll get hotter before it gets cooler. We need somewhere to shelter.'
'Any sign of the marines?' Kulp asked.
'They're dead,' Felisin said. 'They went below decks, only the ship was on fire. Dead. Fewer mouths to feed."
No-one replied to that.
Kulp took the lead, evidently choosing as their destination the far ridge of hills. The others followed without comment.
Twenty minutes later Kulp paused. 'We'd better pick up our pace. I smell a storm coming.'
Felisin snorted. 'All I smell is rank sweat—you're standing too close, Baudin, go away.'
'I'm sure he would if he could,' Heboric muttered, not un-sympathetically. A moment later he looked up in surprise, as if he had not intended to voice aloud that thought. His toadlike face twisted in dismay.
Felisin waited to regain control of her breathing, then she swung to face the thug.
Baudin's small eyes were like dull coins, revealing nothing.
'Bodyguard,' Kulp said, with a slow nod. His voice was cold as he addressed Heboric. 'Out with it. I want to know who our companion is, and where his loyalties lie. I let it slide before, because Gesler and his soldiers were on hand. But not now. This girl has a bodyguard—why? Right now, I can't see anyone caring a whit for a cruel-hearted creature like this one, meaning this loyalty's been bought. Who is she, Heboric?'
The ex-priest grimaced. 'Tavore's sister, Mage.'
Kulp blinked. 'Tavore? The Adjunct? Then what in Hood's name was she doing in a mining pit?'
'She sent me there,' Felisin said. 'You're right—no loyalty involved. I was just one more in Unta's cull.'
Clearly shaken, the mage spun to Baudin. 'You're a Claw, aren't you?' The air around Kulp seemed to glitter—Felisin realized he'd opened his warren. The mage bared his teeth. 'The Adjunct's remorse, in the flesh.'
'Not a Claw,' Heboric said.
Then what?'
'That'll take a history lesson to explain—'
'Start talking.'
'An old rivalry,' the ex-priest said. 'Dancer and Surly. Dancer created a covert arm for military campaigns. In keeping with the Imperial symbol of the demon hand gripping a sphere, he called them his Talons. Surly used that model in creating the Claw. The Talons were external—outside the Empire—but the Claw were internal, a secret police, a network of spies and assassins.'
'But the Claw are used in covert military operations,' Kulp said.
'They are now. When Surly became Regent in the absence of Kellanved and Dancer, she sent her Claws after the Talons. The betrayal started subtly—a string of disastrous botched missions—but someone got careless and gave the game away. The two locked daggers and fought it out to the bitter end.'
'And the Claw won."
Heboric nodded. 'Surly becomes Laseen, Laseen becomes Empress. The Claws sit atop the pile of skulls like well-fed crows. The Talons went the way of Dancer. Dead and gone… or, as a few mused now and then, so far underground as to seem extinct.' The ex-priest grinned. 'Like Dancer himself, maybe.'
Felisin studied Baudin. Talon. What's my sister got to do with some secret sect of revivalists still clinging to the memory of the Emperor and Dancer? Why not use a Claw? Unless she needed to work outside anyone else's knowledge.
'It was too bitter to contemplate from the very start,' Heboric was saying. 'Throwing her younger sister into shackles like any other common victim. An example proclaiming her loyalty to the Empress—'
'Not just hers,' Felisin said. 'House Paran. Our brother's a renegade with Onearm on Genabackis. It made us… vulnerable.'
'It all went wrong,' Heboric said, staring at Baudin. 'She wasn't meant to stay long in Skullcup, was she?'
Baudin shook his head. 'Can't pull out a person who don't want to go.' He shrugged, as if those words were enough and he would say nothing more on that subject.
'So the Talons remain,' Heboric said. 'Then who commands you?'
'No-one,' Baudin answered. 'I was born into it. There's a handful left, kicking around here and there, either old or drooling or both. A few first sons inherited… the secret. Dancer's not dead. He ascended, alongside Kellanved—my father was there to see it, in Malaz City, the night of the Shadow Moon.'
Kulp snorted but Heboric was slowly nodding.
'I got close in my suppositions,' the ex-priest said. 'Too close for Laseen, as it turned out. She suspects or knows outright, doesn't she?'
Baudin shrugged. 'I'll ask next time we chat.'
'My need for a bodyguard is ended,' Felisin said. 'Get out of my sight, Baudin. Take my sister's concern through Hood's gates.'
'Lass—'
'Shut up, Heboric. I will try to kill you, Baudin. Every chance I get. You'll have to kill me to save your own skin. Go away. Now.'
The big man surprised her again. He made no appeal to the others, but simply turned away, taking a route at right angles to the one they had been travelling.
That's it. He's leaving. Out of my life, without a single word. She stared after him, wondering at the twisting in her heart.
'Damn you, Felisin,' the ex-priest snarled. 'We need him more than he needs us.'
Kulp spoke. 'I've a mind to join him and drag you with me, Heboric. Leave this foul witch to herself and Hood take her with my blessings.'
'Go ahead,' Felisin challenged.
The mage ignored her. 'I took on the responsibility of saving your skin, Heboric, and I'll stick to it because Duiker asked me. It's your call, now.'
The old man hugged himself. 'I owe her my life—'
'Thought you'd forgotten that,' Felisin sneered. He shook his head.
Kulp sighed. 'All right. I suspect Baudin will do better without us, in any case. Let's get going before I melt, and maybe you can explain to me your comment about Dancer still being alive, Heboric? That's a very intriguing idea…'
Felisin shut their words away as she walked. This changes nothing, dear sister. Your cherished agent murdered my lover, the only person in Skullcup who gave a damn about me. I was Baudin's assignment, nothing more, and worse, he was incompetent, a bumbling, thick-skulled fool. Carrying around his father's secret sigil —how pathetic! I will find you, Tavore. There, in my river of blood. That I promise—
'—sorcery.'
The word jarred her into awareness. She looked over at Kulp. The mage had quickened his step, his face pale.
'What did you say?' she asked.
'I said that storm rolling up behind us isn't natural, that's what I said.'
She glanced back. A bruised wall of sand cut the valley down its length—the hills she and Baudin had left earlier had vanished. The wall rolled towards them like a leviathan.
'Time to run, I think,' Heboric gasped at her side. 'If we can reach the hills—'
'I know where we are!' Kulp shouted. 'Raraku! That's the Whirlwind!'
Ahead, two hundred or more paces away, rose the ragged, rock-strewn slopes of the hills. Deep defiles cut between each hump, like the imprint of vast ribs.
The three of them ran, knowing that they would not make it in time. The wind that struck their back howled like a thing demented. A moment later, the sand engulfed them.
'The truth of it was, we were out hunting Sha'ik's corpse.'
Fiddler frowned at the Trell sitting opposite him. 'Corpse? She's dead? How? When?' Was this your doing, Kalam? I can't believe it—
'Iskaral Pust claims she was murdered by a troop of Red Blades from Ehrlitan. Or so the Deck whisper
ed to him.'
'I had no idea the Deck of Dragons could be so precise.'
'As far as I know, it cannot.'
They were sitting on stone benches within a burial chamber at least two levels below the Shadow priest's favoured haunts. The benches were attached alongside a rough-hewn wall that had once held painted tiles, and the indents in the limestone beneath them made it clear that the benches were actually pedestals, meant to hold the dead.
Fiddler flexed his leg, reached down and kneaded his knuckles in the still-swollen flesh around the mended bone. Elixirs, unguents… forced healing still hurts. His emotions were dark—had been for days now as the High Priest of Shadow found one excuse after another for delaying their departure, the latest being the need for more supplies. In a strange way Iskaral Pust reminded the sapper of Quick Ben, the squad's mage. An endless succession of plans within plans. He imagined peeling through them one by one, right down to thumbprint schemes all awhirl in devious patterns. It's quite possible that his very existence is nothing more than a collection of if-this and then-that suppositions. Hood's Abyss, maybe that's all we all are!
The High Priest made his head spin. As bad as Quick Ben and this Togg's thorn called Tremorlor. An Azath House, like the Deadhouse in Malaz City. But what are they, precisely? Does anyone know? Anyone at all? There were nothing but rumours, obscure warnings, and few of those at that. Most people did their best to ignore such Houses—the denizens of Malaz City seemed to nurture an almost deliberate ignorance. 'Just an abandoned house,' they say. 'Nothing special, except maybe a few spooks in the yard.' But there's a skittish look in the eyes of some of them.
Tremorlor, a House of the Azath. Sane people don't go looking for places like that.
'Something on your mind, soldier?' Mappo Runt quietly asked. 'I've been watching such a progression of expressions on your face as to fill a wall in Dessembrae's temple.'
Dessembrae. The Cult of Dassem.
'It appears I've just said something unwelcome to your ears,' Mappo continued.
'Eventually a man reaches a point where every memory is unwelcome,' Fiddler said, gritting his teeth. 'I think I've reached that point, Trell. I'm feeling old, used up. Pust has something in mind—we're part of some colossal scheme that'll likely see us dead before too long. Used to be I'd get a sniff or two of stuff like that. Had a nose for trouble, you might say. But I can't work it out—not this time. He's baffled me, plain and simple.'
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