Deadhouse Gates

'A sad demise,' she said. 'I had grown almost fond of him.'

Fiddler nodded. 'Our very own pet scorpion, aye.'

Crokus took the lead as they moved away from the hole. Had they waited a few minutes longer, they would have seen a dull yellow mist rise from the gaping darkness, thickening until it was opaque. The mist remained for a time, then it began to dissipate, and when it finally vanished, so too had the hole — as if it had never been. The mosaic was complete once more.

Deadhouse. Malaz City, the heart of the Malazan Empire. There is nothing for us there. More, an explanation that made sense would challenge even my experienced inventiveness. We must, I fear, take our leave.

Somehow.

But this is far beyond me-this warren — and worse, my crimes are like wounds that refuse to close. I cannot escape my cowardice. In the end — and all here know it, though they do not speak of it — my selfish desires made a mockery of my integrity, my vows. I had a chance to see the threat ended, ended for ever.

How can friendship defeat such an opportunity? How can the comfort of familiarity rise up like a god, as if change itself had become something demonic? I am a coward — the offer of freedom, the sighing end to a lifetime's vow, proved the greatest terror of all.

And so, the simple truth. . the tracks we have walked in for so long become our lives, in themselves a prison-

Apsalar leapt forward, her fingertips touching shoulder, then braids, then nothing. Her momentum took her forward, into the place where Mappo and Icarium had been a moment earlier. She fell towards a yawning darkness.

Crying out, Crokus grasped her ankles. He was pulled momentarily along the tiles towards the gaping hole before a fisherman's strong hands closed on him and anchored him down.

Together, the two men dragged Apsalar from the pit's edge. A dozen paces beyond it stood Fiddler — the Daru's cry had been the first intimation of trouble.

'They're gone!' Crokus shouted. 'They fell through — there was no warning, Fid! Nothing at all!'

The sapper softly cursed, lowering himself into an uneasy crouch. We're intruders here. . He'd heard rumours of warrens that were airless, that were instant death to mortals who dared enter them. There was an arrogance in assuming that every realm in existence bowed to human needs. Intruders — this place cares nothing for us, nor are there any laws demanding that it accommodate us.

Mind you, the same could be said for any world.

He hissed, slowly straightened, fighting against the sudden welling of grief at the loss of two men he had come to consider friends. And which of us is next? 'To me,' he growled. 'All three of you — carefully.' He unslung his pack, set it down and rummaged inside until he found a coiled length of rope. 'We're tying ourselves together — if one goes, either we save him or her, or we all go. Agreed?'

Relieved nods answered him.

Aye, the thought of wandering alone in this warren is not a pleasant one.

They quickly attached the rope between them.

The four travellers had walked another thousand paces when the air stirred — the first wind they had felt since entering the warren — and they ducked as one beneath the passage of something enormous directly overhead.

Scrabbling for his crossbow, Fiddler twisted around to look skyward. 'Hood's breath!'

But the three dragons were already past, ignoring the humans entirely. They flew in triangular formation like a flight of geese, and were of a kind, ochre-scaled, their wing-spans as far across as five wagons end to end. Long, sinuous tails stretched back behind them.

'Foolish to think,' Apsalar muttered, 'that we're the only ones to make use of this realm.'

Crokus grunted. 'I've seen bigger …'

A faint grin cracked Fiddler's features. 'Aye, lad, I know you have.'

The dragons were almost at the edge of their vision when they banked as one, plunged down towards the ground and broke through the tiles, vanishing from sight.

No-one spoke for a long minute, then Apsalar's father cleared his throat and said, 'I think that just told us something.'

The sapper nodded. 'Aye.' You go through when you get to where you're going — even if you don't exactly plan on it. He thought back to Mappo and Icarium. The Trell would have had no reason to accompany them all the way to Malaz City. After all, Mappo had a friend to heal, to coax back to consciousness. He'd be looking for a safe place to do that. As for Iskaral Pust… Probably at the cliffs foot right now, screaming up at the bhok'arala for a rope. .

'All right,' Fiddler said, straightening. 'Seems we've just got to keep moving.. until the time and place arrives.'

'Mappo and Icarium are not lost, not dead,' Crokus said in obvious relief as they began walking again.

'Nor is the High Priest,' Apsalar added.

'Well,' the Daru muttered, 'I suppose we have to take the bad with the good.'

Fiddler briefly wondered about those three dragons — where they had gone, what tasks awaited them — then he shrugged. Their appearance, their departure and, in between and most importantly, their indifference to the four mortals below was a sobering reminder that the world was far bigger than that defined by their own lives, their own desires and goals. The seemingly headlong plunge this journey had become was in truth but the smallest succession of steps, of no greater import than the struggles of a termite.

The worlds live on, beyond us, countless unravelling tales.

In his mind's eye he saw his horizons stretch out on all sides, and as they grew ever vaster he in turn saw himself as ever smaller, ever more insignificant.

We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again. .

Korbolo Dom's warriors celebrated their triumph through the hours of darkness after the Fall of Coltaine. The sounds of that revelry drifted over Aren's walls and brought a coldness to the air that had little to do with the physical reality of the sultry night.

Within the city, facing the north gates, was a broad concourse, generally used as a caravan staging area. This open space was now packed with refugees. The task of billeting would have to await the more pressing needs of food, water and medical attention.

Commander Blistig had set his garrison to those efforts, and his soldiers worked tirelessly, displaying extraordinary compassion, as if answering their own need to respond to the enemy's triumph beyond the walls. Coltaine, his Wickans and the Seventh had given their lives for those the guard now tended. Solicitude was fast becoming an overwhelming gesture.

Yet other tensions rode the air.

The final sacrifice was unnecessary. We could have saved them, if not for the coward commanding us. Two powerful honours had clashed — the raw duty to save the lives of fellow soldiers, and the discipline of the Malazan command structure — and from that collision ten thousand living, breathing, highly trained soldiers now stood broken.

Down in the concourse, Duiker wandered aimlessly through the crowds. Figures loomed before him every now and then, blurred faces murmuring meaningless words, offering information that they each believed — hoped — would soothe him. The Wickan youths had claimed Nil and Nether and now protected them with a fierceness that none dared challenge. Countless refugees had been retrieved from the very edge of Hood's Gates, each one a source of savage defiance — a pleasure revealed in glittering eyes and bared teeth. Those few for whom the final flight — and perhaps the release of salvation itself — had proved too much for their broken, riven flesh, were fought for in unyielding desperation. Hood had to reach for those failing souls, reach for, grasp and drag them into oblivion, with the healers employing every skill they possessed to defeat the effort.

Duiker had found his own oblivion deep inside himself, and he had no desire to leave its numbing comfort.