Deadhouse Gates

by Steven Erikson

  The raider was coming alongside, the pirates jostling as they prepared to leap the distance between the ships. The difference in height meant that they had a climb to make—nor could those on deck see much of what awaited them on Ragstopper. A lone crewman on the raider had begun a lazy climb towards the lone mast's tiny crow's nest. Too late, you fools.

  The pirate captain—the treasurer's uncle, Kalam assumed—shouted a greeting across the distance.

  'Say hello,' the assassin growled. 'Who knows, if your cousins are good enough, you might win the day yet.' The treasurer raised a hand, called out his answer. There was less than ten paces between the two ships now. Salk Elan approached those of the Ragstopper's crew who stood near the marines. 'When she's close enough, use the grappling hooks. Make sure we're snug, lads, becuse if she gets away, she'll hound us from here to Falar.'

  The pirate climbing the mast was halfway up, already swinging around to see if he could get a better look at the scene on Ragstopper's main deck.

  The raider's crew threw lines across. The ships closed. A cry of warning from the lookout was cut short by a crossbow quarrel. The man toppled, landing amidst his fellows crowding the raider's deck. Angry shouts arose.

  Kalam gripped the treasurer by the collar and dragged him back as the first of the pirates leapt the distance and swarmed up Ragstopper's flank.

  'You've made a terrible mistake,' the treasurer hissed. The marines answered the assault with a murderous flight of quarrels. The first line of pirates pitched back.

  Salk Elan shouted a warning that brought Kalam spinning around. Hovering just off the port side, directly behind the grouped marines, an apparition took form, its wings ten paces across, its shimmering scales bright yellow and blinding in the new day's light. The long reptilian head was a mass of fangs. An enkar'al—this far from Raraku—Hood's breath! 'I warned you!' the treasurer laughed. The creature was a blur as it plunged into the midst of the marines, talons crunching through chain and helms.

  Kalam whirled again, drove his fist into the grinning treasurer's face. The man dropped to the deck unconscious, blood gushing from his nose and eyes.

  'Kalam!' Salk Elan shouted. 'Leave the mage to me—help the marines!'

  The assassin bolted forward. Enkar'al were mortal enough, just notoriously hard to kill, and rare even in their desert home—the assassin had never before faced one.

  Seven marines were down. The creature's wings thundered as it hung over the rest, its two taloned limbs darting downward, clashing against shields.

  Pirates were streaming onto Ragstopper, opposed now by only half a dozen marines, the lieutenant among them.

  Kalam had little time to think of what he planned, and none to gauge Salk Elan's progress. 'Stiffen shields!' he bellowed, then leapt forward, scrambling onto the shields. The enkar'al twisted around, razor claws lashing at his face. He ducked and drove his long-knife up between the creature's legs.

  The point jammed against scale, snapping like a twig. 'Hood!'

  Dropping the weapon, Kalam surged upward, clambering over the gnarled, scaly hide. Jaws snapped down at him but could not reach. The assassin swung around, onto the beast's back.

  Sorcerous concussions reached his ears from the raider's deck.

  Thrusting knife in one hand, his other arm looped around the enkar'al's sinuous neck, Kalam began slashing at the beating wings. The blade slipped through membrane, opening wide, spreading gaps. The enkar'al fell to the deck, into the midst of the surviving marines, who closed in around it, thrusting with their short swords.

  The heavier weapons succeeded where long-knife failed, driving between scales. Blood sprayed. The creature screamed, thrashing about in its death throes.

  There was fighting on all sides now, as pirates converged to cut down the last of the marines. Kalam clambered off the dying enkar'al, shifted the knife to his left hand and found a short sword lying beside a dead marine, barely in time to meet the charge of two pirates, their heavy scimitars slashing down on both sides.

  The assassin leapt between the two men, inside their reach, stabbed swiftly with both weapons, then pushed past, twisting his blades as he dragged them free.

  His awareness blurred then, as Kalam surged through a crush of pirates, cutting, slashing and stabbing on all sides. He lost his knife as it jammed between ribs, used the freed hand to yank a helmet away from a collapsing warrior and jam it onto his head—the skullcap was too small, and a glancing blow from a wailing scimitar sent it flying even as he broke through the press, skidding on blood-slick decking as he spun around. Half a dozen pirates wheeled to attack him. Salk Elan struck the group from the side, a long-knife in either hand. Three pirates went down in the first attack. Kalam launched himself forward, batting aside a blade, then driving stiff fingers into its wielder's throat.

  A moment later the clash of weapons had ceased. Figures were sprawled on all sides, some moaning, some shrieking and gibbering in pain, but most still and silent.

  Kalam dropped to one knee, struggling to regain his breath. 'What a mess!' Salk Elan muttered, crouching to wipe his blades clean.

  The assassin lifted his head and stared at him. Elan's fine clothes were scorched and soaked in blood. Half his face was bright red, flash-burned, the eyebrow on that side a smear of ash. He was breathing heavily, and every breath caused him obvious pain.

  Kalam looked past the man. Not a single marine was standing. A handful of sailors moved among the bodies, pulling free those that still lived—they'd found but two thus far, neither one the lieutenant.

  The acting First Mate came to the assassin's side. 'Cook wants to know.'

  'What?'

  'Is that big lizard tasty?' Salk Elan's laugh became a cough.

  'A delicacy,' Kalam muttered. 'A hundred jakatas a pound in Pan'potsun.'

  'Permission to cross over to the raider, sir,' the sailor continued. 'We can resupply.'

  The assassin nodded.

  'I'll go with you,' Salk Elan managed.

  'Appreciate that, sir.'

  'Hey,' one of the sailors called, 'what should we do with the treasurer? The bastard's still alive.'

  'Leave him to me,' Kalam said.

  The treasurer was conscious as they loaded him down with sacks of coin, making noises behind his gag, his eyes wide. Kalam and Salk Elan carried the man between them to the side and pitched him over without ceremony.

  Sharks converged on the splash the man made, but the effort of following him down proved too great for the already sated creatures.

  The stripped-down raider was still burning beneath a column of smoke as it vanished beyond the horizon.

  The Whirlwind lifted itself into a towering wall, higher than the eye could fathom and over a mile in width, around the Holy Desert Raraku. Within the wasteland's heart, all remained calm, the air refulgent with golden light.

  Battered ridges of bedrock rose above the sands ahead, like blackened bones. Walking half a dozen paces in front, Leoman paused and turned. 'We must cross a place of spirits,' he said.

  Felisin nodded. 'Older than this desert… they have risen and now watch us.'

  'Do they mean us harm, Sha'ik Reborn?' the Toblakai asked, reaching for his weapon.

  'No. They may be curious, but they are beyond caring.' She turned to Heboric. The ex-priest was still huddled within himself, hidden beneath his tattoos. 'What do you sense?"

  He flinched away from her voice, as if every word sent his way was a jagged dart. 'One needn't be an immortal ghost not to care,' he muttered.

  She studied him. 'Fleeing from the joy of being reborn cannot last, Heboric. What you fear is becoming human once again—'

  His laugh was bitter, sardonic.

  'You do not expect to hear such thoughts from me,' she noted. 'For all that you disliked what I was, you are loath to relinquish that child.'

  'You're still in that rush of power, Felisin, and it's deluded you into thinking it's delivered wisdom as well. There are gifts, and then there is that which mus
t be earned.'

  'He is as shackles about you, Sha'ik Reborn,' the Toblakai growled. 'Kill him.'

  She shook her head, still eyeing Heboric. 'Since wisdom cannot be gifted to me, I would be gifted a wise man. His company, his words.'

  The ex-priest looked up at that, eyes narrowing beneath the heavy shelf of his brow. 'I thought you'd left me no choice, Felisin.'

  'Perhaps it only seemed that way, Heboric.'

  She watched the struggle within him, the struggle that had always been there. We have crossed a war-ravaged land, and all the while we were warring with ourselves. Dryjhna has but raised a mirror … 'I have learned one thing from you, Heboric,' she said.

  'And that is?'

  'Patience.' She turned about, waved Leoman on.

  They approached the folded, scarred outcroppings. There was little evidence that this place had once known sacred rites. The basaltic bedrock was impervious to the usual pitting and grooving that active hands often worked into the stone of holy sites, nor was there any pattern in the few boulders scattered about.

  Yet Felisin could sense the presence of spirits, once strong, now but echoes, and their faint regard followed them with unseen eyes. Beyond the rise the desert swept out and down into an immense basin, where the dwindling sea of ancient times had finally died. Suspended dust cloaked the vast depression. 'The oasis lies near the centre,' Leoman said at her side. She nodded.

  'Less than seven leagues now.'

  'Who carries Sha'ik's belongings?' she asked. 'I do.'

  'I will take them.'

  He was silent as he set down his pack, untied the flap and began removing items. Clothing, a scatter of a poor woman's rings, bracelets and earrings, a thin-bladed long-knife, its iron stained black except for the honed edge.

  'Her sword awaits us at the encampment,' Leoman said when he'd done. 'She wore the bracelets on her left wrist only, the rings on her left hand.' He gestured down at some leather straps. 'She wound these around her right wrist and forearm.' He paused, looked up at her with hard eyes. 'It were best you matched the attire. Precisely.'

  She smiled. 'To aid in the deceit, Leoman?' He dropped his gaze. 'There may well be some… resistance. The High Mages—'

  'Would bend the cause to their wills, create factions within the camp, then clash in a struggle to decide who will rule all. They have not yet done so, for they cannot determine if Sha'ik still lives. Yet they have prepared the ground.'

  'Seer—'

  'Ah, you accept that much at least.'

  He bowed. 'None could deny the power that has come to you, yet…"

  'Yet I did not myself open the Holy Book.'

  He met her eyes. 'You did not.'

  Felisin looked up. The Toblakai and Heboric stood a short distance away, watching, listening. 'What I shall open is not between those covers, but is within me. Now is not the time.' She faced Leoman again. 'You must trust in me.'

  The skin tightened around the desert warrior's eyes.

  'You never could easily yield that, could you, Leoman?'

  'Who speaks?'

  'We do.'

  He was silent.

  Toblakai.'

  'Yes, Sha'ik Reborn?'

  'To a man who doubts you, you would use what?'

  'My sword,' he replied.

  Heboric snorted.

  Felisin swung to him. 'And you? What would you use?'

  'Nothing. I would be as I am, and if I prove worthy of trust, that man will come to it.'

  'Unless…?'

  He scowled. 'Unless that man cannot trust himself, Felisin.'

  She turned back to Leoman and waited.

  Heboric cleared his throat. 'You cannot command someone to have faith, lass. Obedience, yes, but not belief itself.'

  She said to Leoman, 'You've told me there is a man to the south. A man leading a battered remnant of an army and refugees numbering tens of thousands. They do as he bids, their trust is absolute—how has that man managed that?'

  Leoman shook his head.

  'Have you ever followed such a leader, Leoman?'

  'No.'

  'So you truly do not know.'

  'I do not know, Seer.'

  Dismissive of the eyes of three men, Felisin stripped down and attired herself in Sha'ik's clothing. She donned the stained silver jewellery with an odd sense of long familiarity, then tossed aside the rags she had been wearing earlier. She studied the desert basin for a long moment, then said, 'Come, the High Mages have begun to lose their patience.'

  'We're only a few days from Falar, according to the First Mate,' Kalam said. 'Everyone's talking about these tradewinds.'

  'I bet they are,' the captain growled, looking as if he'd swallowed something sour.

  The assassin refilled their tankards and leaned back. Whatever still afflicted the captain, keeping him to his cot for days now, went beyond the injuries he'd sustained at the hands of the bodyguard. Mind you, head wounds can get complicated. Even so… The captain trembled when he spoke, though his speech was in no way slurred or otherwise impaired. The struggle seemed to be in pushing the words out, in linking them into anything resembling a sentence. Yet in his eyes Kalam saw a mind no less sharp than it had been.

  The assassin was baffled, yet he felt, on some instinctive level, that his presence gave strength to the captain's efforts. 'Lookout sighted a ship in our wake just before sunset yesterday—a Malazan fast trader, he thinks. If it was, it must have passed us without lights or hail in the night. No sign of it this morning.'

  The captain grunted. 'Never made better time. Bet their eyes are wide, too, dropping headless cocks over the starboard side and into Beru's smiling maw at every blessed bell.'

  Kalam took a mouthful of watered wine, studying the captain over the tankard's dented rim. 'We lost the last two marines last night. Left me wondering about that ship's healer of yours.'

  'Been having a run of the Lord's push, he has. Not like him.'

  'Well, he's passed out on pirates' ale right now.'

  'Doesn't drink.'

  'He does now.'

  The look the captain gave him was like a bright, distant flare, a beacon warning of shoals ahead.

  'All's not well, I take it,' the assassin quietly rumbled.

  'Captain's head's askew, that's a fact. Tongue full of thorns, close by ears like acorns under the mulch, ready to hatch unseen. Hatch.'

  'You'd tell me if you could.'

  'Tell you what?' He reached a shaking hand towards the tankard. 'Can't hold what's not there, I always say. Can't hold in a blow, neither, lo, the acorn's rolled away, plumb away,'

  'Your hands look well enough mended.'

  'Aye, well enough.' The captain looked away, as if the effort of conversation had finally become too much.

  The assassin hesitated, then said, 'I've heard of a warren…'

  'Rabbits,' the captain muttered. 'Rats.'

  'All right,' Kalam sighed, rising. 'We'll find you a proper healer, a Denul healer, when we get to Falar.'

  'Getting there fast.'

  'Aye, we are.'

  'On the tradewinds.'

  'Aye.'

  'But there aren't any tradewinds, this close to Falar.'

  Kalam emerged onto the deck, held his face to the sky for a moment, then made his way to the forecastle.

  'How does he fare?' Salk Elan asked.

  'Poorly.'

  'Head injuries are like that. Get knocked wrong and you end up muttering marriage vows to your lapdog.'

  'We'll see in Falar.'

  'We'd be lucky to find a good healer in Bantra.'

  'Bantra? Hood's breath, why Bantra when the main islands are but a few leagues farther along?'

  Elan shrugged. 'Ragstopper's home berth, it seems. In case you haven't noticed, our acting First Mate lives in a tangle of superstition. He's a legion of neurotic sailors all rolled up in one, Kalam, and on this one you won't sway him—Hood knows I've tried.'

  A shout from the lookout interrupted their conversation. 'Sails!
Two pegs off the port bow! Six… seven… ten—Bern's blessing, a fleet!'

  Kalam and Elan stepped over to the forecastle's portside rail. As yet, they could see nothing but waves.

  The First Mate called up from the main deck. 'What's their bearing, Vole?'

  'North, sir! And westerly. They'll cut across our wake, sir!'

  'In about twelve hours,' Elan muttered, 'hard-tacking all the way.'

  'A fleet,' Kalam said.

  'Imperial. The Adjunct Tavore, friend.' The man turned and offered the assassin a tight smile. 'If you thought the blood had run thick enough over your homeland… well, thank the gods we're heading the other way.'

  They could see the first of the sails now. Tavore's fleet. Horse and troop transports, the usual league-long wake of garbage, sewage and corpses human and animal, the sharks and dhenrabi thrashing the waves. Any long journey by sea delivers an army foul of temper and eager to get to business. No doubt enough tales of atrocities have reached them to scorch mercy from their souls.

  'The serpent's head,' Elan said quietly, 'on that long, stretching Imperial neck. Tell me, Kalam, is there a part of you—an old soldier's—longing to be standing on a deck over there, noting with scant interest a lone, Falar-bound trader ship, while deep within you builds that quiet, deadly determination? On your way to deliver Laseen's punishment, what she's always delivered, as an Empress must; a vengeance tenfold. Are you tugged between two tides right now, Kalam?'

  'My thoughts are not yours to pillage, Elan, no matter how rampant your imagination. You do not know me, nor shall you ever know me.'

  The man sighed. 'We've fought side by side, Kalam. We proved ourselves a deadly team. Our mutual friend in Ehrlitan had suspicions of what you intend—think of how much greater your chances with me at your side…'

  Kalam slowly turned to face Elan. 'Chances of what?' he asked, his voice barely carrying.

  Salk Elan's shrug was easy, careless. 'Whatever. You're not averse to partnerships, are you? There was Quick Ben and, before that, Porthal K'nastra—from your early pre-Imperial days in Karaschimesh. Hood knows, anyone looking at your history, Kalam, might well assert that you thrive on partnerships. Well, man, what do you say?'

  The assassin responded with a slow blink of his lids. 'And what makes you think I am alone right now, Salk Elan?'