‘You’ll have to tell it yourself, Sergeant,’ Kalam drawled.
Ebron snapped, ‘The Malazan Empire don’t need allies from the Shadow Realm-get rid of it!’
The assassin glanced over at the mage. ‘As I said earlier, changes have come, Mage. Sergeant Cord, you’re entirely welcome to try throwing a collar round this azalan’s neck. But I should tell you first-even though you’re not asking for my advice-that even though those weird gourds, pans and knobby sticks strapped on to the beast’s belts don’t look like weapons, this azalan has just taken the lives of over five hundred rebel warriors. And how long did that take? Maybe fifty heartbeats. Does it do what I ask? Now that’s a question worth pondering, don’t you think?’
Cord studied Kalam for a long moment. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Having worked alone for some time, Sergeant,’ the assassin replied in a low voice, ‘my skin’s grown thin. I’ll take your squad. I’ll even follow your orders, unless they happen to be idiotic. If you have a problem with all this, take it up with my own sergeant next time you see him. That’d be Whiskeyjack. Apart from the Empress herself, he’s the only man I answer to. You want to make use of me? Fine. My services are available to you… for a time.’
‘He’s on some secret mission,’ Ebron muttered. ‘For the Empress, is my guess. He’s probably back in the Claw-that’s where he started, after all, isn’t it?’
Cord looked thoughtful, then he shrugged and turned away. ‘This is making my head ache. Let’s get below.’
Kalam watched the sergeant push between the clump of soldiers crowding the corridor.
Sinn danced a step.
A blurred sword of dark iron rose along the horizon, a massive, bruised blade that flickered as it swelled ever larger. The wind had fallen off, and it seemed that the island in the path of the sword’s tip grew no closer. Cutter moved up to the lone mast and began storm-rigging the luffing sail. ‘I’m going to man the sweeps for a while,’ he said. ‘Will you take the tiller?’
With a shrug Apsalar moved to the stern.
The storm still lay behind the island of Drift Avalii, over which hung a seemingly permanent, immovable bank of heavy clouds. Apart from a steeply rising shoreline, there seemed to be no high ground; the forest of cedars, firs and redwoods looked impenetrable, their boles ever cloaked in gloom.
Cutter stared at the island for a moment longer, then gauged the pace of the approaching storm. He settled onto the bench behind the mast and collected the sweeps. ‘We might make it,’ he said, as he dropped the oar blades into the murky water and pulled.
‘The island will shatter it,’ Apsalar replied.
He narrowed his eyes on her. It was the first time in days that she had ventured a statement without considerable prodding on his part. ‘Well, I may have crossed a damned ocean, but I still understand nothing of the sea. Why should an island without a single mountain break that storm?’
‘A normal island wouldn’t,’ she answered.
‘Ah, I see.’ He fell silent. Her knowledge came from Cotillion’s memories, appearing to add yet another layer to Apsalar’s miseries. The god was with them once more, a haunting presence between them. Cutter had told her of the spectral visitation, of Cotillion’s words. Her distress-and barely constrained fury-seemed to originate from the god’s recruitment of Cutter himself.
His choosing of his new name had displeased her from the very first, and that he had now become, in effect, a minion of the patron god of assassins appeared to wound her deeply. He had been naive, it now seemed in retrospect, to have believed that such a development would bring them closer.
Apsalar was not happy with her own path-a realization that had rocked the Daru. She drew no pleasure or satisfaction from her own cold, brutal efficiency as a killer. Cutter had once imagined that competency was a reward in itself, that skill bred its own justification, creating its own hunger and from that hunger a certain pleasure. A person was drawn to his or her own proficiency-back in Darujhistan, after all, his thieving habits had not been the product of necessity. He’d suffered no starvation on the city’s streets, no depredation by its crueller realities. He had stolen purely for pleasure, and because he had been good at it. A future as a master thief had seemed a worthy goal, notoriety indistinguishable from respect.
But now, Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart.
He’d found himself at subtle war with her, the weapons those of silence and veiled expressions.
He grunted at the sweeps. The seas were growing choppy. ‘Well, I hope you’re right,’ he said. ‘We could do with the shelter… though from what the Rope said, there will be trouble among the denizens of Drift Avalii.’
‘Tiste Andu,’ Apsalar said. ‘Anomander Rake’s own. He settled them there, to guard the Throne.’
‘Do you recall Dancer-or Cotillion-speaking with them?’
Her dark eyes flicked to his for a moment, then she looked away. ‘It was a short conversation. These Tiste Andu have known isolation for far too long. Their master left them there, and has never returned.’
‘Never?’
‘There are… complications. The shore ahead offers no welcome-see for yourself.’
He drew the oars back in and twisted round on the seat.
The shoreline was a dull grey sandstone, wave-worn into undulating layers and shelves. ‘Well, we can draw up easily enough, but I see what you mean. No place to pull the runner up, and tethering it risks battering by the waves. Any suggestions?’
The storm-or the island-was drawing breath, tugging the sail. They were quickly closing on the rocky coast.
The sky’s rumbles were nearer now, and Cutter could see the wavering treetops evincing the arrival of a high and fierce wind, stretching the clouds above the island into long, twisting tendrils.
‘I have no suggestions,’ Apsalar finally replied. ‘There is another concern-currents.’
And he could see now. The island did indeed drift, unmoored to the sea bottom. Spinning vortices roiled around the sandstone. Water was pulled under, flung back out, seething all along the shoreline. ‘Beru fend us,’ Cutter muttered, ‘this won’t be easy.’ He scrambled to the bow.
Apsalar swung the runner onto a course parallel to the shore. ‘Look for a shelf low to the water,’ she called. ‘We might be able to drag the boat onto it.’
Cutter said nothing to that. It would take four or more strong men to manage such a task…
The dull grey sandstone revealed, in its countless shelves and modulations, a history of constantly shifting sea levels. Cutter had no idea how an island could float. If sorcery was responsible, then its power was vast, and yet, it seemed, far from perfect.
‘There!’ he shouted suddenly, pointing ahead where the coast’s undulations dropped to a flat stretch barely a hand’s width above the roiling water.
‘Get ready,’ Apsalar instructed, half rising from her seat.
Clambering up alongside the prow, a coil of rope in his left hand, Cutter prepared to leap onto the shelf. As they drew closer, he could see that the stone ledge was thin, deeply undercut.
They swiftly closed. Cutter jumped.
He landed square-footed, knees flexing into a crouch.
There was a sharp crack, then the stone was falling away beneath his moccasined feet. Cold water swept around his ankles. Unbalanced, the Daru pitched backward with a yelp. Behind him, the boat rushed inward on the wave that tumbled into the sinking shelf’s wake. Cutter plunged into deep water, even as the encrusted hull rolled over him.
The currents yanked him downward into icy darkness. His left heel thumped against the island’s rock, the impact softened by a thick skin of seaweed.
Down, a terrifyingly fast plummet into the deep.
Then the rock wall was gone, and he was pulled by the currents under the island.
A roar filled his head, the sound of rushing water. His last lungful of air was dwindling to nothing in his chest.
