Deadhouse Gates

He shrugged. 'Heavier.' He kneaded his own arm with his uninjured hand. 'More solid. I don't know. Something's changed.'

Something's changed. She stared at him, the emotions within her twisting around unvoiced fears.

'I could've sworn I was burning away to bones,' he said, his frown deepening.

'I haven't changed,' she said, turning and continuing on. She heard him follow a moment later.

They found a side channel, a cleft where torrents of water had rushed down to join the main channel's course, cutting through the layers of sandstone. This track quickly lost its depth, opening out after twenty or so paces. They emerged onto the edge of a range of blunt hills overlooking a broad valley of cracked earth. More hills, sharper and ragged, rose on the other side, blurry behind waves of heat.

Five hundred paces out on the pan stood a figure. At its feet lay a humped shape.

'Heboric,' Baudin said, squinting. 'The one standing.'

And the other one? Dead or alive? And who?

They walked side by side towards the ex-priest, who now watched them. His clothing too had burned away to little more than charred rags. Yet his flesh, beneath that skein of tattooing, was unmarred.

As they neared, Heboric gestured towards his own bald pate. 'Suits you, Baudin,' he said with a wry grin.

'What?' Felisin's tone was caustic. 'Are you two a brotherhood now?'

The figure at the old man's feet was the mage, Kulp. Her gaze fell to him. 'Dead.'

'Not quite,' Heboric said. 'He'll live, but he hit something going over the side.'

'Awaken him, then,' Felisin said. 'I don't plan on waiting in this heat just so he can get some beauty sleep. We're in a desert again, old man, in case you hadn't noticed. And desert means thirst, not to mention the fact that we're without food or anything like supplies. And finally, we've no idea where we are-'

'On the mainland,' Heboric said. 'Seven Cities.'

'How do you know that?'

The ex-priest shrugged. 'I know.'

Kulp groaned, then sat upright. One hand gingerly probing a lump above his left eye, the mage looked around. His expression soured.

'The Seventh Army's camped just over yonder,' Felisin said.

For a moment he looked credulous, then he gave a weary smile. 'Funny, lass.' He climbed to his feet and scanned the horizon on all sides before tilting his head back and sniffing the air. 'Mainland,' he pronounced.

'Why didn't all that white hair burn off?' Felisin asked. 'You're not even singed.'

'That dragon's warren,' Heboric said, 'what was it?'

'Damned if I know,' Kulp admitted, running a hand through the white shock on his head as if to confirm that it still existed. 'Chaos, maybe — a storm of it between warrens — I don't know. Never seen anything like it before, though that don't mean much — I'm no Ascendant, after all-'

'I'll say,' Felisin muttered.

The mage squinted at her. 'Those pocks on your face are fading.'

This time it was she who was startled.

Baudin grunted.

She whirled on him. 'What's so funny?'

'I saw that, only it don't make you any prettier.'

'Enough of this,' Heboric said. 'It's midday, meaning it'll get hotter before it gets cooler. We need somewhere to shelter.'

'Any sign of the marines?' Kulp asked.

'They're dead,' Felisin said. 'They went below decks, only the ship was on fire. Dead. Fewer mouths to feed.'

No-one replied to that.

Kulp took the lead, evidently choosing as their destination the far ridge of hills. The others followed without comment.

Twenty minutes later Kulp paused. 'We'd better pick up our pace. I smell a storm coming.'

Felisin snorted. 'All I smell is rank sweat — you're standing too close, Baudin, go away.'

'I'm sure he would if he could,' Heboric muttered, not un-sympathetically. A moment later he looked up in surprise, as if he had not intended to voice aloud that thought. His toadlike face twisted in dismay.

Felisin waited to regain control of her breathing, then she swung to face the thug.

Baudin's small eyes were like dull coins, revealing nothing.

'Bodyguard,' Kulp said, with a slow nod. His voice was cold as he addressed Heboric. 'Out with it. I want to know who our companion is, and where his loyalties lie. I let it slide before, because Gesler and his soldiers were on hand. But not now. This girl has a bodyguard — why? Right now, I can't see anyone caring a whit for a cruel- hearted creature like this one, meaning this loyalty's been bought. Who is she, Heboric?'

The ex-priest grimaced. 'Tavore's sister, Mage.'

Kulp blinked. 'Tavore? The Adjunct? Then what in Hood's name was she doing in a mining pit?'

'She sent me there,' Felisin said. 'You're right — no loyalty involved. I was just one more in Unta's cull.'

Clearly shaken, the mage spun to Baudin. 'You're a Claw, aren't you?' The air around Kulp seemed to glitter — Felisin realized he'd opened his warren. The mage bared his teeth. 'The Adjunct's remorse, in the flesh.'

'Not a Claw,' Heboric said.

'Then what?'

'That'll take a history lesson to explain-'

'Start talking.'

'An old rivalry,' the ex-priest said. 'Dancer and Surly. Dancer created a covert arm for military campaigns. In keeping with the Imperial symbol of the demon hand gripping a sphere, he called them his Talons. Surly used that model in creating the Claw. The Talons were external — outside the Empire — but the Claw were internal, a secret police, a network of spies and assassins.'

'But the Claw are used in covert military operations,' Kulp said.

'They are now. When Surly became Regent in the absence of Kellanved and Dancer, she sent her Claws after the Talons. The betrayal started subtly — a string of disastrous botched missions — but someone got careless and gave the game away. The two locked daggers and fought it out to the bitter end.'

'And the Claw won.'

Heboric nodded. 'Surly becomes Laseen, Laseen becomes Empress. The Claws sit atop the pile of skulls like well-fed crows. The Talons went the way of Dancer. Dead and gone … or, as a few mused now and then, so far underground as to seem extinct.' The ex-priest grinned. 'Like Dancer himself, maybe.'

Felisin studied Baudin. Talon. What's my sister got to do with some secret sect of revivalists still clinging to the memory of the Emperor and Dancer? Why not use a Claw? Unless she needed to work outside anyone else's knowledge.

'It was too bitter to contemplate from the very start,' Heboric was saying. 'Throwing her younger sister into shackles like any other common victim. An example proclaiming her loyalty to the Empress-'

'Not just hers,' Felisin said. 'House Paran. Our brother's a renegade with Onearm on Genabackis. It made us … vulnerable.'

'It all went wrong,' Heboric said, staring at Baudin. 'She wasn't meant to stay long in Skullcup, was she?'

Baudin shook his head. 'Can't pull out a person who don't want to go.' He shrugged, as if those words were enough and he would say nothing more on that subject.

'So the Talons remain,' Heboric said. 'Then who commands you?'

'No-one,' Baudin answered. 'I was born into it. There's a handful left, kicking around here and there, either old or drooling or both. A few first sons inherited … the secret. Dancer's not dead. He ascended, alongside Kellanved — my father was there to see it, in Malaz City, the night of the Shadow Moon.'

Kulp snorted but Heboric was slowly nodding.

'I got close in my suppositions,' the ex-priest said. 'Too close for Laseen, as it turned out. She suspects or