Deadhouse Gates

'The Soletaken and D'ivers.'

'Tremorlor is… aware … of those who seek it.'

Iskaral Pust cackled, then ducked at a glare from Crokus.

'Including us, I take it,' Fiddler said.

Icarium nodded. 'Aye.'

'And it means to defend itself,' the Trell said.

'If it can.'

Mappo scratched his jaw. The responses of a living entity.

'We should stop here,' Fiddler said. 'Get some sleep-'

'Oh no, you mustn't!' Iskaral Pust said. 'Urgency!'

'Whatever lies ahead,' the sapper growled, 'can wait. If we're not rested-'

'I agree with Fiddler,' Icarium said. 'A few hours …'

The camp was haphazard, bedrolls set out in silence, a scant meal shared. Mappo watched the others settling down until only he and Rellock remained awake. The Trell joined the old man as he prepared his own bedding.

Mappo spoke in a low voice, 'Why did you obey Iskaral's commands, Rellock? To draw your daughter to this place … into these circumstances …'

The fisherman grimaced, visibly struggling towards a reply. 'I was gifted, sir, with this here arm. Our lives were spared-'

'As you said before, and you were delivered to Iskaral. To a fortress in a desert. Where you were made to draw your only child into danger … I am sorry if I offend, Rellock. I seek only to understand.'

'She ain't what she was. Not my little girl. No.' He hesitated, hands twitching where they rested on the bedroll. 'No,' he repeated, 'what's done is done, and there's no going back.' He looked up. 'Got to make the best of how things are. My girl knows things …' He glanced away, eyes narrowing as he stared at something only he could see. 'Terrible things. But, well, there's a child still there — I can see it. All that she knows … Well — ' he fixed Mappo with a glare — 'knowing ain't enough. It ain't enough.' He scowled, then shook his head and looked away. 'I can't explain-'

'I am following you so far.'

With a sigh, Rellock resumed, 'She needs reasons. Reasons for everything. It's my feeling, anyway. I'm her father, and I say she's got more learning to do. It's no different from being out on the water — you learn no place safe. Not real learning. No place safe, Trell.' Shaking himself, he rose. 'Now you gone and made my head ache.'

'Forgive me,' Mappo said.

'If I'm lucky, she might do that for me one day.'

The Trell watched him finish laying out the bedroll. Mappo rose and headed to where he'd left his sack. We learn no place safe.' Whatever sea god looks down on you, old man, must surely fix an eye on his lost child now.

Muffled in his bedrolls, unable to sleep, Mappo heard move' ment behind him, then Icarium's low voice.

'Best get back to sleep, lass.'

The Trell heard wry amusement in her reply. 'We're much alike, you and I.'

'How so?' Icarium asked.

She sighed. 'We each have our protectors — neither of whom is capable of protecting us. Especially not from ourselves. So they're dragged along, helpless, ever watchful, but so very helpless.'

Icarium's reply was measured and toneless. 'Mappo is a companion to me, a friend. Rellock is your father. I understand his notion of protection — what else is a father to do? But it is a different thing, Mappo and me.'

'Is it now?'

Mappo held his breath, ready to rise, to close this conversation now-

Apsalar continued after a moment. 'Perhaps you are right, Icarium. We are less alike than it first seemed. Tell me, what will you do with your memories once you find them?'

The Trell's silent relief was but momentary. Yet now he did not struggle with an urge to intervene; rather, he held himself very still, waiting to hear the reply to a question he had never dared ask Icarium.

'Your question … startles me, Apsalar. What do you do with yours?'

'They are not mine — most of them, anyway. I have a handful of images from my life as a fishergirl. Bargaining in a market for twine. Holding my father's hand over a cairn where cut flowers lay scattered on the weathered stones, a feel of lichen where once I touched skin. Loss, bewilderment — I must have been very young.

'Other memories belong to a wax witch, an old woman who sought to protect me during Cotillion's possession. She'd lost a husband, children, all sacrificed to Imperial glory. You'd think, wouldn't you, that bitterness would overwhelm all else within such a woman? But not so. Helpless to protect her loved ones, her instincts — so long bottled up — embraced me instead. And do so to this day, Icarium …'

'An extraordinary gift, lass …'

'Indeed. Finally, my last set of borrowed memories — the most confusing of all. An assassin's. Once mortal, then Ascendant. Assassins bow to the altar of efficiency, Icarium, and efficiency is brutal. It sacrifices mortal lives without a second thought, all for whatever is perceived as the greater need. At least it was so in the case of Dancer, who did not kill for coin, but for a cause that was less self-aggrandizing than you might think. In his mind, he was a man who fixed things. He viewed himself as honourable. A man of integrity, was Dancer. But efficiency is a cold-blooded master. And there's a final irony. A part of him, in defiance of his need to seek vengeance upon Laseen, actually.. sympathizes. After all, she bowed to what she perceived as a greater need — one of Empire — and chose to sacrifice two men she called friends to answer that need.'

'Within you, then, is chaos.'

'Aye, Icarium. Such are memories in full flood. We are not simple creatures. You dream that with memories will come knowledge, and from knowledge, understanding. But for every answer you find, a thousand new questions arise. All that we were has led us to where we are, but tells us little of where we're going. Memories are a weight you can never shrug off.'

A stubborn tone was evident as Icarium muttered, 'A burden I would accept nonetheless.'

'Let me offer some advice. Do not say that to Mappo, unless you wish to further break his heart.'

The Trell's blood was a thunder coursing through him, his chest aching with a breath held overlong.

'I do not understand,' Icarium said quietly after a time, 'but I would never do that, lass.'

Mappo let the air loose, slowly, struggling to control himself. He felt tears run crooked tracks from the corners of his eyes.

'I do not understand.' This time, the words were a whisper.

'Yet you wish to.'

There was no reply to that. A minute passed, then there came to Mappo sounds of movement. 'Here, Icarium,' Apsalar said, 'dry those eyes. Jhag never weep.'

Sleep eluded Mappo and, he suspected, there were others among the group for whom rest offered no surcease from tortured thoughts. Only Iskaral Pust seemed at ease, if his groaning snores were any indication.

Before long, Mappo heard the sounds of movement once again, and Icarium spoke in a calm, measured voice. 'It is time.'

They broke camp swiftly. Mappo was still drawing the ties of his sack when Fiddler set out, a soldier approaching a battlefield, cautious yet determined. The High Priest of Shadow bounded after him. As Icarium prepared to follow, Mappo reached out and gripped the Jhag's arm.

'My friend, Azath Houses seek to imprison all who possess power — do you fathom what you risk?'

Icarium smiled. 'Not just me, Mappo. You ever underestimate yourself, what you have become after all these centuries. We must trust in the Azath understanding that we mean no harm, if we intend to continue onward.'

The others had all set out — Apsalar sparing one searching glance their way — leaving the two alone.

'How can we trust in something we cannot understand?' the Trell demanded. 'You said 'aware'. How? Precisely what is aware?'

'I have no idea. I sense a presence, that is all. And if I can sense it, then it in turn can sense me. Tremorlor suffers, Mappo. It fights alone, and its cause is just. I mean to help the Azath, and so to Tremorlor lies the choice