Deadhouse Gates

bones. The horses were shying, tossing their heads as grey dust rose like smoke.

Hood's breath, we're in the Imperial Warren.' Kalam found himself standing on a broad, raised disc of grey basalt. Sky merged with land in a formless, colourless haze. I could wring your neck, Quick Ben! The assassin had heard rumours that such a warren had been created and the description matched, but the tales he'd picked up on Genabackis suggested that it was barely nascent, extending no more than a few hundred leagues — if leagues mean much here — in a ring around Unta. Instead, it reaches all the way into Seven Cities. And Genabackis? Why not? Quick Ben, there could be a Claw riding your shoulder right now…

The children had settled their horses and were now in the saddles, well away from the grisly scorched mound. Kalam glanced over to see Minala and Selv tying Keneb onto his saddle.

The assassin approached his own stallion. The beast snorted disdainfully as he swung himself up and gathered the reins.

'We're in a warren, aren't we?' Minala asked. 'I'd always believed all those tales of other realms were nothing but elaborate inventions wizards and priests used to prop up all the fumbling around they did.'

Kalam grunted. He'd been run through enough warrens and plunged into enough chaotic maelstroms of sorcery to take it for granted. Minala had just reminded him that for most people such a reality was remote, viewed with scepticism if acknowledged at all. Is such ignorance a comfort or a source of blind fear?

'I take it we're safe from Korbolo Dom here?'

'I certainly hope so,' the assassin muttered.

'How do we select a direction? There're no landmarks, no trail…'

'Quick Ben says you travel with an intention in mind and the warren will take you there.'

'And the destination you have in mind?'

Kalam scowled, was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed. 'Aren.'

'How safe are we?'

Safe? We've stepped into a hornets' nest. 'We'll see.'

'Oh, that's a comfort!' Minala snapped.

The image of the crucified Malazan boy rose once again in the assassin's thoughts. He glanced over at Keneb's children. 'Better this risk than a … different certainty,' he muttered.

'Are you going to explain that comment?'

Kalam shook his head. 'Enough talk. I've a city to visualize…'

Lostara Yil walked her mount up to the gaping hole, understanding at once that, although she had never seen one before, this was a portalway into another warren. Its edges had begun fading, like a wound closing.

She hesitated. The assassin had chosen a short-cut, a means of slipping past the traitor's army between him and Aren. The Red Blade knew she had no choice but to follow, for the trail would prove far too cold should she manage the long way to Aren. Even getting through Korbolo Dom's forces would likely prove impossible — as a Red Blade she was bound to be recognized, even wearing unmarked armour as she did now.

Still, Lostara Yil hesitated.

Her horse reared back squealing as a figure staggered from the portalway. A man, grey-clothed, grey-skinned — even his hair was grey — straightened before her, glanced around with strangely luminous eyes, then smiled.

'Not a hole I expected to fall through,' he said in lilting Malazan. 'My apologies if I startled you.' He sketched a bow, the gesture resulting in clouds of dust cascading from him. The grey was ash, Lostara realized. Dark skin revealed itself in patches on the man's lean face.

He eyed her knowingly. 'You carry an aspected sigil. Hidden.'

'What?' Her hand drifted towards her sword hilt.

The man caught the motion, his smile broadening. 'You are a Red Blade, an officer in fact. Which makes us allies.'

Her eyes narrowed. 'Who are you?'

'Call me Pearl. Now, it seems you were about to enter the Imperial Warren. I suggest we do so before continuing our conversation — before the portalway closes.'

'Can you not keep it open, Pearl? After all, you were travelling it. .'

The man's exaggerated frown was mocking. 'Alas, this is a door where no door should be possible. Granted, north of here even the Imperial Warren is fraught with … unwelcome intruders… but their means of entry is far more … primitive, shall we say… in nature. So, since this portalway is clearly not of your making, I suggest we take immediate advantage of its presence.'

'Not until I know who you are, Pearl. Rather, what you are.'

'I am a Claw, of course. Who else is granted the privilege of travelling the Imperial Warren?'

She nodded at the portalway. 'Someone's just granted that privilege to himself.'

Pearl's eyes sparkled. 'And this is what you shall tell me about, Red Blade.'

She sat in silence, thinking, then nodded. 'Yes. Ideal. I shall accompany you.'

Pearl took a step backward and beckoned with one gloved hand.

Lostara Yil tapped heels to her mount's flanks.

Quick Ben's shaved knuckle in the hole was slower in closing than anyone had anticipated. Seven hours after the Red Blade and the Claw had vanished within the Imperial Warren, stars glittered in the moonless sky overhead, and still the portalway gaped, its red-lined edges fading to dull magenta.

Sounds drifted into the glade, echoes of panic and alarm in Korbolo Dom's encampment. Parties of riders set out in all directions, bearing torches. Mages risked their warrens, seeking trails through the now perilous pathways of sorcery.

Thirteen hundred Malazan children had vanished, the liberation unseen by the pickets or the mounted patrols. The X-shaped wooden crosses were bare, with only stains of blood, urine and excrement to show that living beings had once hung from them in agony.

In the darkness the plain was strangely alive with shadows, flowing sourcelessly over the motionless grasses.

Apt strode silently into the glade, her daggerlike fangs gleaming their natural grin. Sweat glistened on her black hide, the thick spiny bristles of her hair wet with dew. She stood erect, her single forelimb clutching the limp body of a young boy. Blood dripped from his hands and feet, and his face had been horribly chewed and pecked, leaving him eyeless and with a gaping red hole where his nose had been. Faint breaths from fevered, shallow lungs showed in misty plumes that drifted forlornly in the clearing.

The demon squatted down on her haunches and waited.

Shadows gathered, pouring like liquid between the trees to hover before the portalway.

Apt cocked her head and spread wide her mouth in something like a canine yawn.

A vague shape took form within the shadows. The glowing eyes of guardian Hounds appeared to flank the figure.

'I thought I had lost you,' Shadowthrone whispered to the demon. 'Snared so long by Sha'ik and her doomed goddess. Yet this night you return, not alone — oh no, not alone, aptorian. You've grown ambitious since you were but a Demon Lord's concubine. Tell me, my dear, what am I to do with over a thousand dying mortals?'

The Hounds were eyeing Apt as if the demon was a potential meal.

'Am I a cutter? A healer?' Shadowthrone's voice was rising, octave by octave. 'Is Cotillion a kindly uncle? Are my Hounds farmyard skulkers and orphans' puppies?' The shadow that was the god flared wildly. 'Have you gone entirely insane?'

Apt spoke in a rapid, rasping series of clicks and hisses.

'Of course Kalam wanted to save them!' Shadowthrone shrieked. 'But he knew it was impossible! Only vengeance was possible! But now! Now I must exhaust my powers healing a thousand maimed children! And for what?'

Apt spoke again.

'Servants? And precisely how big do you think Shadow Keep is, you one-armed imbecile!'