House of Chains

Temul was not in sight. Gamet pitied the lad. He was already fighting a half-dozen skirmishes, without a blade drawn, and he was losing. And there’s not a damned thing any of us can do about it.

He approached the tent’s entrance, scratched at the flap and waited.

‘Come in, Gamet,’ the Adjunct’s voice called from within.

She was kneeling in the fore-chamber before a long, stone box, and was just settling the lid into place when he stepped through the entrance. A momentary glimpse-her otataral sword-then the lid was in place. ‘There is some softened wax-there in that pot over the brazier. Bring it over, Gamet.’

He did so, and watched as she brushed the inset join between lid and base, until the container was entirely sealed. Then she rose and swept the windblown sand from her knees. ‘I am already weary of this pernicious sand,’ she muttered.

She studied him for a moment, then said, ‘There is watered wine behind you, Gamet. Pour yourself some.’

‘Do I look in need, Adjunct?’

‘You do. Ah, I well know, you sought out a quiet life when you joined our household. And here I have dragged you into a war.’

He felt himself bridling and stood straighten ‘I am equal to this, Adjunct.’

‘I believe you. None the less, pour yourself some wine. We await news.’

He swung about in search of the clay jug, found it and strode over. ‘News, Adjunct?’

She nodded, and he saw the concern on her plain features, a momentary revelation that he turned away from as he poured out a cup of wine. Show me no seams, lass. I need to hold on to my certainty.

‘Come stand beside me,’ she instructed, a sudden urgency in her tone.

He joined her. They faced the clear space in the centre of the chamber.

Where a portal flowered, spreading outward like liquid staining a sheet of gauze, murky grey, sighing out a breath of stale, dead air. A tall, green-clad figure emerged. Strange, angular features, skin the shade of coal-dust marble; the man’s broad mouth had the look of displaying a perpetual half-smile, but he was not smiling now.

He paused to brush grey dust from his cloak and leggings, then lifted his head and met Tavore’s gaze. ‘Adjunct, greetings from the Empress. And myself, of course.’

‘Topper. I sense your mission here will be an unpleasant one. Fist Gamet, will you kindly pour our guest some wine?’

‘Of course.’ Gods below, the damned master of the Claw. He glanced down at his own cup, then offered it to Topper. ‘I have yet to sip. Here.’

The tall man tilted his head in thanks and accepted the cup.

Gamet went to where the jug waited.

‘You have come directly from the Empress?’ Tavore asked the Clawmaster.

‘I have, and before that, from across the ocean… from Genabackis, where I spent a most glum evening in the company of High Mage Tayschrenn. Would it shock you to know that he and I got drunk that night?’

Gamet’s head turned at that. It seemed such an unlikely image in his mind that he was indeed shocked.

The Adjunct looked equally startled, then she visibly steeled herself. ‘What news have you to tell me?’

Topper swallowed down a large mouthful of wine, then scowled. ‘Watered. Ah well. Losses, Adjunct. On Genabackis. Terrible losses…’

Lying motionless in a grassy depression thirty paces beyond the squad’s fire, Bottle closed his eyes. He could hear his name being called. Strings-who was called Fid by Gesler-wanted him, but the mage was not ready. Not yet. He had a different conversation to listen to, and managing that-without being detected-was no easy task.

His grandmother back in Malaz City would have been proud. ‘Never mind those damned warrens, child, the deep magic is far older. Remember, seek out the roots and tendrils, the roots and tendrils. The paths through the ground, the invisible web woven from creature to creature. Every creature-on the land, in the land, in the air, in the water-they are all linked. And it is within you, if you have been awakened, and spirits below, you’ve been awakened, child! Within you, then, to ride those tendrils.’

And ride them he did, though he would not surrender his private fascination with warrens, with Meanas in particular. Illusions… playing with those tendrils, with those roots of being, twisting and tying them into deceptive knots that tricked the eye, the touch, that deceived every sense, now that was a game worth playing…

But for the moment, he had immersed himself in the old ways, the undetectable ways-if one were careful, that is. Riding the life-sparks of capemoths, of rhizan, of crickets and chigger fleas, of roving blood-flies. Mindless creatures dancing on the tent’s wall, hearing but not comprehending the sound shivers of the words coming from the other side of that tent wall.

Comprehension was Bottle’s task. And so he listened. As the newcomer spoke, interrupted by neither the Adjunct nor Fist Gamet. Listened, and comprehended.

Strings glared down at the two seated mages. ‘You can’t sense him?’

Balgrid’s shrug was sheepish. ‘He’s out there, hiding in the dark somewhere.’

‘And he’s up to something,’ Tavos Pond added. ‘But we can’t tell what.’

‘It’s strange,’ Balgrid muttered.

Strings snorted and strode back to Gesler and Borduke. The other squad members were brewing tea at the small fire they had built to one side of the path. Cuttle’s snores were loud from the tent beyond. ‘The bastard’s vanished,’ Strings said.

Gesler grunted. ‘Maybe he’s deserted, and if that’s the case the Wickans will hunt him down and come back with his head on a spear. There won’t be-’

‘He’s here!’

They turned to see Bottle settling down by the fire. Strings stamped over. ‘Where in Hood’s name have you been?’ he demanded.

Bottle looked up, his brows slowly lifting. ‘Nobody else felt it?’ He glanced over at Balgrid and Tavos Pond, who were both approaching. ‘That portal? The one that opened in the Adjunct’s tent?’ He frowned at the blank expressions on the faces of the two other mages, then asked in a deadpan voice, ‘Have you two mastered hiding pebbles yet? Making coins disappear?’

Strings lowered himself opposite Bottle. ‘What was all that about a portal?’

‘Bad news, Sergeant,’ the young man replied. ‘It all went foul on Genabackis. Dujek’s army mostly wiped out. The Bridgeburners annihilated. Whiskeyjack’s dead-’

‘Dead!’

‘Hood take us!’

‘Whiskeyjack? Gods below!’

The curses grew more elaborate, along with postulations of disbelief, but Strings no longer heard them. His mind was numb, as if a wildfire had ripped through his inner landscape, scorching the ground barren. He felt a heavy hand settle on his shoulder and vaguely heard Gesler murmuring something, but after a moment he shook the man off, rose and walked into the darkness beyond the camp.

He did not know how long, or how far he walked. Each step was senseless, the world outside his body not reaching through to him, remaining beyond the withered oblivion of his mind. It was only when a sudden weakness took his legs that he sank down onto the wiry, colourless grasses.

The sound of weeping, coming from somewhere ahead, a sound of sheer despair that pierced through the fog and thrummed in his chest. He listened to the ragged cries, winced to hear how they seemed torn from a constricted throat, like a dam finally sundered by a flood of grief.

He shook himself, growing mindful once more of his surroundings. The ground beneath the thin skein of grasses was hard and warm beneath his knees. Insects buzzed and flitted through the dark. Only starlight illuminated the wastes stretching out to all sides. The encamped army was easily a thousand or more paces behind him. Strings drew a deep breath, then rose. He walked slowly towards the sound of the weeping.

A lad, lean-no, damn near scrawny, crouched down with arms wrapped about his knees, head sunk low. A single crow feather hung from a plain leather headband. A few paces beyond stood a mare, bearing a Wickan