Orb Sceptre Throne

‘So,’ he began, his voice thick and hoarse, ‘Morn thought you part Andii. What do you think?’

Her dark eyes sought his but he resolutely kept them on the hall. ‘It feels right. I guess I’d never thought about it until he said it. It explains a lot of things.’

He leaned back against the side of the portal. ‘Never thought about it? Who raised you, then?’

‘I grew up in what I know now was some sort of temple, or religious community. The priests and priestesses were my parents and teachers. I never left it. As I grew older I explored a bit and found that the temple was on an island. A very small island. After that I suppose I just contented myself with learning about the world through the stories and texts in the temple. That and my teachers.’

‘Who taught you the Andii tongue, and their letters.’

‘And their literature and legends and mythology.’

‘That didn’t make you wonder?’

She cocked her head aside in the darkness, considering. ‘No. Should it have? I just thought it was normal. I thought everyone learned these things. There was nothing to compare it to. Now, I know that must have been a temple to Elder Dark.’ She shook her head, a regretful smile at her lips. ‘I’m not the first to discover that most of what I’ve been taught was either wrong, irrelevant, or insane.’

Antsy nodded at that. Yeah. Parents and family work their craziness too. Gods, just look at Spindle.

‘There’s more, of course,’ she continued, sounding puzzled. ‘Other strange things that I still can’t understand. I seem to remember …’ She shifted, uneasy.

‘You don’t have to go on,’ Antsy murmured, keeping his gaze fixed on the dark hall. ‘I understand. But maybe I can help you sort through it.’

She let out a steadying breath, her lips clenched, then nodded. ‘I had many teachers. They seemed to come and go.’

‘Uh-huh. And this is strange?’

‘Antsy … They were young when they came and when they left … they were old.’

He forced himself to swallow to wet his suddenly dry throat. ‘Ah. That is strange. You sure …?’

‘Yes. And I seem to remember it happening many times.’

Antsy let out a sound as if thinking that through. Queen release me! When will I learn to keep my damned mouth shut? ‘Well … Andii are long-lived, right? There you go.’ Hood! This ‘child’ is probably more than twice my age! What’s she been learning all that time? ‘Listen. Maybe that’s enough for-’

The jarring clanging of metal on metal blasted through the Spawn’s steady background noise of groans and clatterings. Corien leapt to his feet. Shouts sounded up the hall and quite a few screams as well. A figure stepped into the hall, shouted: ‘C’mon, you lot! It’s the alarm. Let’s go!’

Their watcher. Antsy nodded to Orchid. ‘Put a darkness here in the hall.’

She shut her eyes, murmuring, and all the faint glow of distant lights disappeared. The man peered about, panicked. ‘What in the Abyss …’

Antsy made for him. The fellow heard his approach and went for his sword but he was obviously blind, so Antsy kicked him in the groin then kneed him in the face, shattering the cartilage of his nose and possibly killing him. He took the man’s weapons while he lay stunned.

‘Which way?’ he called to Orchid. She pointed up the other way. He gave the sword to Corien, kept a fighting dirk. ‘I’ll lead. Corien, watch the rear.’

As they traced halls and turned corners, it came to him that Orchid was attempting to lead them round the settlement. He was happy with that because occasional blasts and screams reached them from whatever was going on over at one side of the complex. But as Orchid took longer and longer to choose directions the noise steadily became louder with each length of empty hall or chamber traversed and the yellow glow of lanterns and lamps thickened. By the time she came to a full halt in a narrow chamber whose only other exit was an open portal, he could make out the thumping release of crossbows, the ringing of iron from stone, shouts, and, above all, an argument of some sort between a high strident harridan’s voice and a much lower, deeper and fainter man’s voice.

‘This is not the way!’ the woman screeched.

‘Let us hear what our guide has to say,’ the man murmured.

‘Fire!’ a voice bellowed, Otan’s, then a volley of crossbows released, the bolts clattering from stone.

‘Aiya!’ the woman yelled. ‘Who are these wretches?’

‘Indigenes? Perhaps?’

‘Indigenes? Are you brainless? These are not Andii!’

‘Yet strictly speaking … are they not the new residents here?’

What in the name of Oponn …? Antsy edged forward to peer round the lip of the opening. What was this? The portal gave access to a large hall, what seemed a main boulevard faced by many building fronts carved from the stone of the Spawn. Bodies lay scattered among wreckage across the floor. Lanterns lay fallen, spilled oil burning to send up clouds of black smoke that obscured the high ceiling.

Two figures faced each other in the centre of the hall. One, the old woman, wore an eye-watering costume of all shades of red, complete with a headdress of fluttering crimson ribbons, and what appeared to be carmine gloves on her hands. The other was a short round ball of a man, bland-faced, in layered dark robes, his hands clasped across his broad front as if to hold it in from bursting.

So amazed by these two was Antsy that he failed to notice a third figure scuttling up the hall. The fellow was staring at him, his eyes huge and his mouth open in his own incredulity. ‘Kill that man!’ the skinny youth howled, pointing.

Antsy flinched — and met the glaring eyes of the young thief from Hurly. Great Burn! What was that fool’s name? Jallin! Yes, that’s right.

The lad ran to the squabbling pair, still pointing. ‘Kill him, mistress!’

The woman took a swipe at him that he ducked. ‘Shut up, fool. Does the way go on?’

‘Yes,’ the youth snarled.

Armour clattering announced another file of crossbowmen led by Otan crossing the hall.

Gotta give the man credit for guts.

‘Hesta …’ the fat man murmured.

The woman threw her hands in the air. ‘Oh, cursed gods above! More of them?’

She lowered her arms, palms out. Orchid yanked on the back of Antsy’s armour. ‘Down!’ she hissed. Like an upended forge, flames came billowing up the wide boulevard. Men and women screamed, reduced to dark shapes consumed by the churning yellow and orange.

A furnace’s searing heat crackled at Antsy’s arms, which he had thrown up to protect his head, and then with a redoubled avalanche roar the radiance disappeared, leaving him blinking, momentarily blinded. The cackle of the youth sounded in the sudden silence, followed by a slap that cut it off. ‘Show us!’ the woman commanded.

‘Perhaps they merely wished to talk,’ the man’s voice reached them, retreating.

‘Oh, shut up!’

Antsy dared raise his head. Flames lit a scene out of Hood’s own realm. Burning corpses and furnishings sent smoke curling up into the thickening miasma choking the air. He didn’t like the way it just hung there. No outlet.

Orchid was crushing the burnt ends of her frazzled hair. ‘I’m sorry, Antsy,’ she said, sounding miserable.

‘Sorry for what?’

She raised her soot-smeared chin to the boulevard. ‘That’s the way up.’

Somehow I knew she was going to say that.

Bendan gave his name to everyone in the Malazan camp as ‘Butcher’. His own squad didn’t use it any more now that they’d reached the main rendezvous south-west of Dhavran. They’d used it for a while after that last engagement and during the march, and it had been among the happiest times of his life. It even rivalled the feeling of belonging and safety he’d known among his peers in the mud ways and alleys of Maiten town. He’d revelled in it