Orb Sceptre Throne

down the shallow stairs. The cusser. Sweet Soliel, no!

Even as he stared it bounced once, twice, three times, then slid down the polished smooth stone floor to disappear into the great yawning hole in the middle of the chamber.

Hood’s laughter!

Everyone was screaming and shouting and cursing. A piece of what looked like expensive travelling baggage came sliding out of the darkness to follow the cusser down the well. An old man yelled his despair.

Then the stone of the Spawn kicked Antsy. At least that’s what it felt like. The floor jerked, punishing his ankles and knees. A great gust of air came shooting from the well. It stank of the acrid smoke of expended munitions and was heavy with water vapour.

Ponderously, among bursting and grinding complaints of stone, the Spawn began to tilt back in the opposite direction, righting itself. The old woman, Hesta, came staggering out of the dark. Her ribbons and hair had gone, revealing a wrinkled bald scalp. With her pale head and scrawny body she more than ever resembled a vulture.

‘You fool!’ she shrieked, pointing. ‘You’ve killed us all!’ Wordless with fury, she threw her hands up and howled in a cracking, hoarse voice. Then she swung those hands down to Antsy. ‘Die!’

A wall of blindingly bright flame came billowing and churning across the chamber for him.

A stupid Damn was all he managed as he stood there fully expecting to die.

A hand grasped him by the neck of his leather hauberk and yanked him backwards.

*

Antsy found himself lying in darkness. Gradually his mage-sight gathered itself and he saw that he was in an entirely different room. This one was long, low-roofed, and contained stone sarcophagi. Sitting on one of those stone coffins was a familiar figure eyeing him and scowling his disapproval. Mallet.

Antsy carefully stood and dusted himself off. He nodded to Mallet. ‘Thanks.’

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ the dead squad healer said.

‘That’s what Ferret said.’

‘You should’ve listened to him.’

‘Nobody ever listened to Ferret.’

Mallet nodded. ‘That’s what I said.’

Antsy walked the room, peered at the sarcophagi lined up in double rows. As if marshalled at attention. ‘So this is it, hey?’

The big man shrugged his meaty shoulders — and he was big, just not tall. Squat and solid enough to swing that heavy two-handed weapon of his. ‘Yeah. Last resting place.’

‘I was worried, you know … what with all this, maybe someone had gotten in …’

The healer’s voice was sharp: ‘Think we’d allow that?’

Antsy raised his hands. ‘Hey — you’re dead, right?’

Mallet ran a hand along the dust-laden top of one stone slab. ‘And you ain’t, Antsy. Which is our point. You’re retired. Go back to … wherever it is. Don’t go looking for trouble no more.’

The Spawn rocked about them, stone grinding and moaning. Dust sifted down through the still air of the burial chamber. Antsy snorted, gesturing. ‘Looks like I might as well stay. I’m dead anyway.’

Mallet shook his head. ‘No, you aren’t.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says us. And we can see these things now. Whose end is near. Whose isn’t. We decide. And you know what? None of us ever liked you, Antsy — so you’re just gonna have to kick around for quite a while yet.’

Antsy fell on to one of the sarcophagi as the Spawn rocked around him. ‘What? ’

‘You heard me. All that moanin’ all the time about how we’re all gonna die and Hood will get us all in the end. Well, look at you and look at us. You was no fun alive — imagine how you’ll be dead! We’ve about had it, I tell you.’

Antsy straightened to hold his legs wide against the pitching while he cursed under his breath. ‘Fine! To think I was worried ’bout you. You can all rot! Get me outta here.’

‘Done!’ and Mallet gave a backhanded wave. The darkness closed about Antsy and he was gone.

A moment later another figure walked up behind Mallet; this one taller, bearded, wearing a helmet with wide cheek-guards. ‘Think he bought all that?’ he asked.

‘I dunno. I think so. I mixed it up with half-truths. Never could stand his groaning. A bucket of cold water he was all the time.’

‘And none of us had any faults,’ the figure murmured. He waved a goodbye, like a blessing. ‘Go live, Antsy. Sour doomsayer that you are. Sometimes the only thing that gives me grace is the knowledge that some of us are still out there.’

‘We’re going where none will disturb us now,’ Mallet observed.

‘Four fathoms down we will rest.’

*

Antsy stepped out of darkness into pandemonium. From all sides about the great chamber, from portals, halls and doors, the ragged army of Torbal Loat was pushing in against a cordon of Malazans aided by the foreign mercenaries, Corien, and a few others. Behind Loat’s robber army pressed a further horde of surviving Spawn looters. Even as Antsy watched, more kept arriving to throw their weight against the marines. Crossbows fired indiscriminately. Tossed furniture flew back and forth.

Orchid appeared to take his arm. ‘We thought you were dead!’ she shouted.

‘I ducked.’

‘We’re sinking! Everyone’s gone berserk.’

‘I don’t blame them.’

‘Malazan,’ a strong voice called from the dark.

Antsy glanced over, seeing nothing, but Orchid’s breath caught. ‘Morn.’ She pulled and Antsy allowed himself to be dragged along.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded.

‘These are powerful mages. I am but a reflection of a shadow. I dare not show myself yet.’

‘Where is the Gap?’ Orchid demanded.

‘It’s too late for that now. The Gap is submerged. The waters are rising.’

‘Then we’re lost!’

‘No. There is a way out but only you, Orchid, can open it. As the last of the blood here in these halls you are the mistress of the Spawn. Those doors will open for you.’

‘What?’

Antsy’s gaze slitted his suspicion. ‘You mean all along … Then why …’

‘All alternatives had to be exhausted, Malazan. Now they will listen to Orchid. And within, child, the only exit is through Night Imperishable. And only you can open the Path.’

Antsy took hold of Orchid’s arm. ‘Fine. Let’s go. Our thanks, shade. And by the way, my charge … would it have worked?’

The figure of dark shook its hooded head.

Antsy pulled Orchid after him. He muttered as he marched away. ‘Yeah, well. That’s what you think.’

The cordon was shrinking, giving ground before the hundreds pushing in upon it. It looked as though the last stand would take place before the great tall doors of black stone themselves, where the mages had gathered together on the raised steps. With the elegant fellow, Bauchelain, was an ugly squat man, pale and bloated, an idiotic grin on his face. And behind them hunched an old man loaded with baggage — well, perhaps not so old, just looking extremely careworn.

Antsy caught the eye of one of the foreign lads, the Heels, who waved and pushed forward, tossing people from his path to make way for them. Antsy squeezed through with Orchid, nodded his thanks, then ran for the doors.

‘You!’ snarled Hesta, her wig askew.

‘Another time, perhaps,’ her companion, Ogule, murmured. He pointed, and a swath of desperate Spawn fortune-hunters clutched at their throats, gurgling and flailing.

‘Not quite the outcome I foresaw,’ Seris shouted to Antsy over the clash of battle.