Deadhouse Gates

'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 Bern'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?'

For the briefest yet most satisfying of moments, Kalam saw a flicker of uncertainty rattle Elan's face, before a smooth smile appeared. 'And where does he hide, up in the crow's nest with that dubiously named lookout?'

Kalam turned away. 'Where else?'

The assassin felt Salk Elan's eyes on his back as he strode away. You've the arrogance common to every mage, friend. You'll have to excuse my pleasure in spreading cracks through it.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I stood in a place

where all shadows converged

the end of the Path of Hands

Soletaken and D'ivers

through the gates of truth

where from the darkness

all mysteries emerged.

The Path

Trout Sen'al'Bhok'arala

They came upon the four bodies at the edge of an upthrust of roots that seemed to mark the entrance to a