Deadhouse Gates

'Kalam,' the rider whispered, 'He was here but a moment ago.'

Pearl's eyes narrowed. 'Ah, now I understand. You weren't following me, were you? No, of course not. How silly of me! Well, to answer your question, child, Kalam has gone into the city-'

The demon's lunge interrupted him. Pearl ducked beneath the snapping jaws — and directly into the sweeping foreclaw. The impact threw the Claw twenty feet, crashing him up against a battened-down dory. His shoulder dislocated with a stab of pain. Pearl rolled, forcing himself into a sitting position. He watched the demon stalk towards him.

'I see I've met my match,' Pearl whispered. 'Very well.' He reached under his shirt. 'Try this one, then.'

The tiny bottle shattered on the deck between them. Smoke billowed, began coalescing.

'The Kenryll'ah looks eager, wouldn't you say? Well — ' he struggled to his feet — 'I think I'll leave you two to it. There's a certain tavern in Malaz City I've been dying to see.'

He gestured and a warren opened, swept over him, and when it closed, Pearl was gone.

Apt watched the Imperial demon acquire its form, a creature twice its weight, hulking and bestial.

The child reached down and patted Apt's lone shoulder. 'Let's be quick with this one, shall we?'

A chorus of shudders and explosions of wood awoke the captain. He blinked in the darkness as Ragstopper pitched wildly about him. Voices screamed on deck. Groaning, the captain pushed himself off the bed, sensing a clarity in his mind that he'd not known in months, a freedom of action and thought that told unequivocally that Pearl's influence was gone.

He clambered to his cabin door, limbs weak with disuse, and made his way into the passage.

Emerging on deck, he found himself in a crowd of cowering sailors. Two horrific creatures were battling directly in front of them, the larger of the two a mass of shredded flesh, unable to match its opponent's lightning speed. Its wild flailing with a massive double-bladed axe had reduced the deck and the rails to pulp. An earlier swing had chopped through the mast, and though it remained upright, snagged in cordage somewhere high above them, it leaned precariously, its weight canting the ship hard over.

'Captain!'

'Have the lads drag the surviving dories clear, Palet, and back up astern — we'll lower 'em from there.'

'Aye, sir!' The acting First Mate snapped out the commands, then swung back to offer the captain a grin. 'Glad you're back, Carther-'

'Shut your face, Palet — that's Malaz City out there and I drowned years ago, remember?' He squinted at the warring demons. 'Ragstopper's not going to survive this-'

'But the loot-'

'To Hood with that! We can always raise her — but we need to be alive to do it. Now, let's lend a hand with those dories — we're taking on water and going down fast.'

'Beru fend! The sea's crawling with sharks!'

Fifty yards farther out, the captain of the fast trader stood with his First Mate, both of them straining to make out the source of the commotion ahead.

'Back oars,' the captain said. 'Full stop.'

'Aye, sir.'

'That ship's going down. Assemble rescue crews, lower the boats-'

Horse hooves clomped on the main deck behind them. Both men turned. The First Mate stepped forward. 'You there! What in Mael's name do you think you're doing? How did you get that damned animal on deck?'

The woman tightened the girth-strap another notch, then swung up into the saddle. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'But I cannot wait.'

Sailors and marines scattered as she drove the horse forward. The creature cleared the side rail and leapt out into darkness. A loud splash followed a moment later.

The First Mate turned back to his captain, jaw hanging.

'Get Ship's Mage and a goat,' the captain snapped.

'Sir?'

'Anyone brave and stupid enough to do what she just did has earned our every assistance. Have Ship's Mage clear a path through the sharks and whatever else might await her. Be quick about it!'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Every throne is an arrow-butt.

Kellanved

Beneath the whirlwind's towering spire was a lower billowing of dust as the massive army decamped. Borne on wayward gusts, the ochre clouds spread out from the oasis, settling here and there among the weathered folds of ruins. The air was lit gold on all sides, as if the desert had at last unveiled its memories of wealth and glory, only to reveal them for what they truly were.

Sha'ik stood on the flat roof of a wooden watchtower near the palace concourse, the scurrying efforts of an entire city beneath her almost unnoticed as she stared into the opaqueness to the south. The young girl she had adopted kneeled close by, watching her new mother with sharp, steady eyes.

The ladder below creaked incessantly to someone's laboured ascent, Sha'ik slowly realized, and as she turned she saw Heboric's head and shoulders emerge through the trap. The ex-priest clambered onto the platform and laid an invisible hand on the girl's head before turning to squint at Sha'ik.

'L'oric's the one to watch,' Heboric said. 'The other two think they're subtle, but they're anything but.'

'L'oric,' she murmured, returning her gaze to the south. 'What is your sense of him?'

'You've knowledge that surpasses mine, lass-'

'Nevertheless.'

'I think he senses the bargain.'

'Bargain?'

Heboric moved to stand beside her and leaned his tattooed forearms on the thin wooden railing. 'The one the goddess made with you. The one that proves that a rebirth did not in truth occur-'

'Did it not, Heboric?'

'No. No child chooses to be born, no child has any say in the matter. You had both. Sha'ik has not been reborn, she has been re-made. L'oric may well seize on this, believing it to be a gap in your armour.'

'He risks the wrath of the goddess, then.'

'Aye, and I don't think he's ignorant of that, lass, which is why he needs to be watched. Carefully.'

They were silent for a time, both staring out into the south's impenetrable shroud. Eventually Heboric cleared his throat. 'Perhaps, with your new gifts, you can answer some questions.'

'Such as?'

'When did Dryjhna choose you?'

'What do you mean?'

'When did the manipulation begin? Here in Raraku? Skullcup? Or on a distant continent? When did the goddess first cast her gaze upon you, lass?'

'She never did.'

Heboric started. 'That seems-'

'Unlikely? Yes, but it is the truth. The journey was mine, and mine alone. You must understand, even goddesses cannot foresee unexpected deaths, those twists of mortality, decisions taken, paths followed or not followed. Sha'ik Elder had the gift of prophecy, but such a gift, when given, is no more than a seed. It grows in the freedom of a human soul. Dryjhna was greatly disturbed by Sha'ik's visions. Visions that made no sense. A hint of peril, but nothing certain, nothing at all. Besides,' she added with a shrug, 'strategy and tactics are anathema to the Apocalypse.'

Heboric grimaced. 'That doesn't bode well.'

'Wrong. We are free to devise our own.'