Deadhouse Gates

'Write of this, old man.'

Duiker glanced at the captain and saw a broken man.

At Gelor Ridge, Corporal List had leapt down into the ditch beside the earthen ramp to avoid a swarm of arrows. His right foot had landed on a javelin head thrust up through the dirt. The iron point had driven through the sole of his boot, then the flesh between his big toe and the next one along.

A small wound, naught but mischance, yet punctures were the most feared of all battle wounds. They carried a fever that seized joints, including those of the jaw, that could make the mouth impossible to open, closing the throat to all sustenance and bringing agonizing death.

The Wickan horsewives had experience of treating such injuries, yet their supply of powders and herbs had long since dwindled, leaving them with but one treatment — burning the wound, and the burning had to be thorough. The hours after the battle of Gelor Ridge, the air was foul with the stench of burned hair and the macabre, sweetly enticing smell of cooked meat.

Duiker found List hobbling in a circle with a determined expression on his thin, sweat-beaded face. The corporal glanced up as the historian approached. 'I can ride as well, sir, though for only an hour at a time. The foot goes numb and it's then that infection could return — or so I'm told.'

Four days ago the historian had walked alongside the travois that carried List, looking down on a young man that he was certain was dying. A harried Wickan horsewife had quickly checked on the corporal during the march. Duiker had seen a grim expression settle into her lined features as she probed with her fingers the swollen glands beneath List's sparsely bearded chin. Then she had glanced up at the historian.

Duiker recognized her then, and she him. The woman who once offered me food.

'It's not good,' he'd said.

She hesitated, then reached under the folds of her hide cloak to withdraw a knuckle-sized, misshapen object that looked to Duiker like nothing more than a knob of mouldy bread. 'A jest of the spirits, no doubt,' she said in Malazan. Then she bent down, grasped List's injured foot — which had been left unbandaged and open to the hot, dry air — and pressed the knob against the puncture wound, binding it in place with a strip of hide.

A jest to make Hood frown.

'You should be ready to rejoin the ranks soon, then,' Duiker now said.

List nodded, approached. 'I must tell you something, sir,' he said quietly. 'My fever showed me visions of what's ahead-'

'That happens sometimes.'

'A god's hand reached out from the darkness, grasped my soul and dragged it forward, through days, weeks. Historian-' List paused to wipe the sweat from his brow — 'the land south of Vathar … we're going to a place of old truths.'

Duiker's gaze narrowed. 'Old truths? What does that mean, List?'

'Something terrible happened there, sir. Long ago. The earth — it's lifeless-'

That is something only Sormo and the High Command know. 'This god's hand, Corporal, did you see it?'

'No, but I felt it. The fingers were long, too long, with more joints than there should be. Sometimes that grip comes back, like a ghost's, and I start shivering in its icy clutch.'

'Do you recall that ancient slaughter at Sekala Crossing? Did your visions echo those, Corporal?'

List frowned, then shook his head. 'No, what lies ahead of us now is much older, Historian.'

Shouts arose as the train readied to lurch into motion again, down off the Imperial Road and onto the trader track.

Duiker looked out over the studded plain to the south. 'I will walk alongside your travois, Corporal,' he said, 'while you describe for me in detail these visions of yours.'

'They might be naught but fevered delusions, Historian-'

'But you don't believe so. . and neither do I.' His eyes remained on the plain. A many-jointed hand. Not a god's hand, Corporal, though one of such power that you might well have thought so. You've been chosen, lad, for whatever reason, to witness an Elder vision. Out from the darkness comes the cold hand of a Jaghut.

Felisin sat on a block of masonry that had fallen from the ancient gate, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes on the ground before her, steadily rocking in a slow cadence. The motion brought peace to her mind, as if she was nothing more than a vessel filled with water.

Heboric and the giant warrior were arguing. About her, about prophecies and ill chance, about the desperation of fanatics. Mutual contempt swirled and bubbled between the two men, seemingly born in the instant they met, and growing darker with every moment that passed.

The other warrior, Leoman, crouched nearby, matching her silence. He had before him the Holy Book of Dryjhna, guarding the tome in her stead, awaiting what he seemed to see as her inevitable acceptance that she was indeed Sha'ik reborn.

Reborn. Renewed. Heart of the Apocalypse. Delivered by the unhanded in the suspended breath of the goddess. Who waits still. Waits as Leoman waits. Felisin, hinge of the world.

A smile cracked her features.

She rocked to distant cries, the ancient echoes of sudden, soul-jarring deaths — they seemed so far away now. Kulp, devoured beneath a seething mound of rats. Gnawed bones and a shock of white hair streaked red. Baudin, burned in a fire of his own making — oh, the irony of that, he lived by his own rule and died with that same godless claim. Even as he gave up his life for someone else. Still, he'd say he made his vow freely.

These are the things that bring stillness.

Deaths that had already withdrawn, far down the endless, dusty track, too distant to make their demands heard or felt. Grief rapes the mind, and I know all about rape. It's a question of acquiescence. So I shall feel nothing. No rape, no grief.

Stones grated beside her. Heboric. She knew the feeling of his presence and had no need to look up. The one-time priest of Fener was muttering under his breath. Then he fell silent, as if steeling himself to reach into her silence. Rape. A moment later he spoke, 'They want to get moving, lass. They're both far gone. The oasis — Sha'ik's encampment — is a long walk. There's water to be found on the way, but little in the way of food. The Toblakai will hunt, but game's gone very scarce — the Soletaken and D'ivers, I gather. In any case, whether you open the Book or not, we have to move.'

She said nothing, continued rocking.

Heboric cleared his throat. 'For all I rage against their mad, fevered notions, and counsel most strongly against your accepting them … we need these two, and the oasis. They know Raraku — better than anyone else. If we're to have any chance of surviving..'

Surviving.

'I'll grant you,' Heboric went on after a moment, 'I've acquired … senses … that make my blindness less of a liability. And these hands of mine, reborn… Nonetheless, Felisin, I'm not enough to guard you. And besides, there is no guarantee that these two will let us walk away from them, if you understand my meaning.'

Surviving.

'Wake up, lass! You've got some decisions to make.'

'Sha'ik drew her blade against the Empire,' she said, eyes still on the dusty ground.

'A foolish gesture-'

'Sha'ik would face the Empress, would send the Imperial armies into a blood-filled Abyss.'

'History recounts similar rebellions, lass, and the tale is an endless echo. Glorious ideals lend a vigour of health to Hood's bleached grin, but it's naught but a glamour, and righteousness-'

'Who cares about what's righteous, old man? The Empress must needs answer Sha'ik's challenge.'

'Aye.'

'And shall despatch an army from Quon Tali.'

'Likely already on the way.'

'And,' Felisin continued, feeling a cold breath touch her flesh, 'who commands this army?'

She heard him draw a sharp breath of his own and felt him flinch back.