Deadhouse Gates

'Best get inside,' Baudin said.

'I'm not sleepy.'

He stepped close, the motion fluid like a cat's. 'I don't give a damn if you're sleepy or not. Sitting out under the sun will dry you out, meaning you'll drink more water, meaning less for us, meaning get in this damned tent, lass, before I lay a hand to your backside.'

'If Beneth was here you wouldn't-'

'The bastard's dead!' he snarled. 'And Hood take his rotten soul to the deepest pit!'

She sneered. 'Brave now — you wouldn't have dared stand up against him.'

He studied her as he would a bloodfly caught in a web. 'Maybe I did,' he said, a sly grin showing a moment before he turned away.

Suddenly cold, Felisin watched the thug stride over to the other tent, crouch down and crawl inside. I'm not fooled, Baudin. You were a mongrel skulking in alleys, and all that's changed is that you've left the alleys behind. You'd squirm in the sand at Beneth's feet, if he were here. She waited another minute in defiance before entering her own tent.

Unfurling her bedroll, she lay down. Her eagerness to sleep was preventing her from doing so. She stared up at the dark imperfections in the canvas weave, wishing she had some durhang or a jug of wine. The crimson river of her dreams had become an embrace, protective and welcoming. She conjured from memory an echo of the image, and all the feelings that went with it. The river flowed with purpose, ordered and in-exorable; when in its warm currents, she felt close to understanding that purpose. She knew she would discover it soon, and with that knowledge her world would change, become so much more than it was now. Not just a girl, plump and out of shape and used up, the vision of her future reduced to days when it should be measured in decades — a girl who could call herself young only with sneering irony. For all that the dream promised her, there was a value in self-contempt, a counterpoint between her waking and sleeping hours, what was and what could be. A tension between what was real and what was imagined, or so Heboric would put it from his acid-pocked critical eye. The scholar of human nature held it in low opinion. He would deride her notions of destiny, and her belief that the dream offered something palpable would give him cause to voice his contempt. Not that he's needed cause. I hate myself, but he hates everyone else. Which of us has lost the most?

She awoke groggy, her mouth parched and tasting of rust. The air was grainy, a dim grey light seeping through the canvas. She heard sounds of packing outside, a short murmur from Heboric, Baudin's answering grunt. Felisin closed her eyes, trying to recapture the steady, flowing river that had carried her through her sleep, but it was gone.

She sat up, wincing as every joint protested. The others experienced the same, she knew. A nutritional deficiency, Heboric guessed, though he did not know what it might be. They had dried fruit, strips of smoked mule and some kind of Dosii bread, brick-hard and dark.

Muscles aching, she crawled from the tent into the chill morning air. The two men sat eating, the packets of rations laid out before them. There was little left, with the exception of the bread, which was salty and tended to make them desperately thirsty. Heboric had tried to insist that they eat the bread first — over the first few days — while they were still strong, not yet dehydrated, but neither she nor Baudin had listened, and for some reason he abandoned the idea with the next meal. Felisin had mocked him for that, she recalled. Unwilling to follow your own advice, eh, old man? Yet the advice had been good. They would reach the salt-laden, deathly coast with naught but even saltier bread to eat, and little water to assuage their thirst.

Maybe we didn't listen because none of us believed we would ever reach the coast. Maybe Heboric decided the same after that first meal. Only I wasn't thinking that far ahead, was I? No wise acceptance of the futility of all this. I mocked and ignored the advice out of spite, nothing more. As for Baudin, well, rare was the criminal with brains, and he wasn't at all rare.

She joined the breakfast, ignoring their looks as she took an extra mouthful of lukewarm water from the bladder when washing down the smoked meat.

When she was done, Baudin repacked the food.

Heboric sighed. 'What a threesome we are!' he said.

'You mean our dislike of each other?' Felisin asked, raising a brow. 'You shouldn't be surprised, old man,' she continued. 'In case you haven't noticed, we're all broken in some way. Aren't we? The gods know you've pointed out my fall from grace often enough. And Baudin's nothing more than a murderer — he's dispensed with all notions of brotherhood, and is a bully besides, meaning he's a coward at heart…' She glanced over to see him crouched at the packs, flatly eyeing her. Felisin gave him a sweet smile. 'Right, Baudin?'

The man said nothing, the hint of a frown in his expression as he studied her.

Felisin returned her attention to Heboric. 'Your flaws are obvious enough — hardly worth mentioning-'

'Save your breath, lass,' the ex-priest muttered. 'I don't need no fifteen-year-old girl telling me my failings.'

'Why did you leave the priesthood, Heboric? Skimmed the coffers, I suppose. So they cut your hands off, then tossed you onto the rubbish heap behind the temple. That's certainly enough to make anyone take up writing history as a profession.'

'Time to go,' Baudin said.

'But he hasn't answered my question-'

'I'd say he has, girl. Now shut up. Today you carry the other pack, not the old man.'

'A reasonable suggestion, but no thanks.'

Face darkening, Baudin rose.

'Leave it be,' Heboric said, moving to sling the straps through his arms. In the gloom Felisin saw the stump that had touched the jade finger for the first time. It was swollen and red, the puckered skin stretched. Tattoos crowded the end of the wrist, turning it nearly solid dark. She realized then that the etchings had deepened everywhere on him, grown riotous like vines.

'What's happened to you?'

He glanced over. 'I wish I knew.'

'You burned your wrist on that statue.'

'Not burned,' the old man said. 'Hurts like Hood's own kiss, though. Can magic thrive buried in Otataral sand? Can Otataral give birth to magic? I've no answers, lass, for any of this.'

'Well,' she muttered, 'it was a stupid thing to do — touching the damned thing. Serves you right.'

Baudin started off without comment. Ignoring Heboric, Felisin fell in behind the thug. 'Is there a waterhole ahead this night?' she asked.

The big man grunted. 'Should've asked that before you took more than your ration.'

'Well, I didn't. So, is there?'

'We lost half a night yesterday.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning no water until tomorrow night.' He looked back at her as he walked. 'You'll wish you'd saved that mouthful.'

She made no reply. She had no intention of being honourable when the time came for her next drink. Honour's for fools. Honour's a fatal flaw. I'm not going to die on a point of honour, Baudin. Heboric's probably dying anyway. It'd be wasted on him.

The ex-priest trudged in her wake, the sound of his footfalls dimming as he fell farther back as the hours passed. In the end, she concluded, it would be she and Baudin, just the two of them, standing facing the sea at the western edge of this Queen-forsaken island. The weak always fall to the wayside. It was the first law of Skullcup; indeed, it was the first lesson she'd learned — in the streets of Unta on the march to the slaveships.

Back then, in her naivety, she'd looked upon Baudin's murder of Lady Gaesen as an act of reprehensible horror. If he were to do the same today — putting Heboric out of his misery — she would not even blink. A long journey, this one. Where will it end? She thought of the river of blood, and the thought warmed her.

True to Baudin's prediction, there was no waterhole to mark the end of the night's journey. The man selected as a campsite a sandy bed surrounded by wind-sculpted projections of limestone. Bleached human bones littered the bed, but Baudin simply tossed them aside when laying out the tents.