found. It had come up from deep water.' He shook his head. 'I've a feeling we haven't seen the last of them.'
'The Shadow Realm,' Kalam said. 'It was theirs, once, and now they want it back.'
The wizard's gaze narrowed on the assassin. 'Cotillion told you this?'
Kalam shrugged.
'It keeps coming back to Shadowthrone, doesn't it? No wonder I'm nervous. That slimy, slippery bastard-'
'Oh Hood's balls,' Stormy groaned, 'give me that rice piss, if you're gonna go on and on. Shadowthrone ain't scary. Shadowthrone's just Ammanas, and Ammanas is just Kellanved. Just like Cotillion's Dancer.
Hood knows, we knew the Emperor well enough. And Dancer. They up to something? No surprise. They were always up to something, from the very start. I tell you both right now,' he paused for a swig of rice wine, made a face, then continued, 'when all the dust's settled, they' ll be shining like pearls atop a dung-heap. Gods, Elder Gods, dragons, undead, spirits and the scary empty face of the Abyss itself – they won't none a them stand a chance. You want to worry about Tiste Edur, wizard? Go ahead. Maybe they ruled Shadow once, but Shadowthrone'll take 'em down. Him and Dancer.' He belched. 'An' you know why? I'll tell you why. They never fight fair. That's why.'
Kalam looked over at the empty chair, and his eyes slowly narrowed.
Stumbling, crawling, or dragging themselves along through the bed of white ash, they all came to where Bottle sat, the sky a swirl of stars overhead. Saying nothing, not one of those soldiers, but each in turn managing one gentle gesture – reaching out and with one finger, touching the head of Y'Ghatan the rat.
Tender, with great reverence – until she bit that finger, and the hand would be snatched back with a hissed curse.
One after another, Y'Ghatan bit them all.
She was hungry, Bottle explained, and pregnant. So he explained. Or tried to, but no-one was really listening. It seemed that they didn't even care, that her bite was part of the ritual, now, a price of blood, the payment of sacrifice.
He told those who would listen that she had bitten him too.
But she hadn't. Not her. Not him. Their souls were inextricably bound, now. And things like that were complicated, profound even. He studied the creature where it was settled in his lap. Profound, yes, that was the word.
He stroked her head. My dear rat. My sweet- ow! Damn you! Bitch!
Black, glittering eyes looked up at him, whiskered nose twitching.
Vile, disgusting creatures.
He set the creature down and it could wander over a precipice for all he cared. Instead, the rat snuggled up against his right foot and curled into sleep. Bottle looked over at the makeshift camp, at the array of dim faces he could see here and there. No-one had lit a fire.
Funny, that, in a sick way.
They had come through it. Bottle still found it difficult to believe.
And Gesler had gone back in, only to return a while later. Followed by Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas, the warrior dragging Strings into view, then himself collapsing. Bottle could hear the man's snores that had been going on uninterrupted half the night.
The sergeant was alive. The honey smeared into his wounds seemed to have delivered healing to match High Denul, making it obvious that it had been anything but ordinary honey – as if the strange visions weren't proof enough of that. Still, even that was unable to replace the blood Strings had lost, and that blood loss should have killed him. Yet now the sergeant slept, too weak to manage much else, but alive.
Bottle wished he was as tired… in that way, at least, the kind that beckoned warm and welcoming. Instead of this spiritual exhaustion that left his nerves frayed, images returning again and again of their nightmare journey among the buried bones of Y'Ghatan. And with them, the bitter taste of those moments when all seemed lost, hopeless.
Captain Faradan Sort and Sinn had stashed away a supply of water-casks and food-packs, which they had since retrieved, but for Bottle no amount of water could wash the taste of smoke and ashes from his mouth. And there was something else that burned still within him. The Adjunct had abandoned them, forcing the captain and Sinn to desert.
True enough, it was only reasonable to assume noone had been left alive. He knew his feeling was irrational, yet it gnawed at him nonetheless.
The captain had talked about the plague, sweeping towards them from the east, and the need to keep the army well ahead of it. The Adjunct had waited as long as she could. Bottle knew all that. Still…
'We're dead, you know.'
He looked over at Koryk, who sat cross-legged nearby, a child sleeping beside him. 'If we're dead,' Bottle said, 'why do we feel so awful?'
'As far as the Adjunct's concerned. We're dead. We can just… leave.'
'And go where, Koryk? Poliel stalks Seven Cities-'
'Ain't no plague gonna kill us. Not now.'
'You think we're immortal or something?' Bottle asked. He shook his head. 'We survived this, sure, but that doesn't mean a damned thing.
It sure as Hood doesn't mean that the next thing to come along won't kill us right and quick. Maybe you're feeling immune – to anything and everything the world can throw at us, now. But, believe me, we're not.'
'Better that than anything else,' Koryk muttered.
Bottle thought about the soldier's words. 'You think some god decided to use us? Pulled us out for a reason?'
'Either that, Bottle, or your rat's a genius.'
'The rat was four legs and a good nose, Koryk. Her soul was bound. By me. I was looking through her eyes, sensing everything she sensed-'
'And did she dream when you dreamed?'
'Well, I don't know-'
'Did she run away, then?'
'No, but-'
'So she waited around. For you to wake back up. So you could imprison her soul again.'
Bottle said nothing.
'Any god tries to use me,' Koryk said in a low voice, 'it'll regret it.'
'With all those fetishes you wear,' Bottle noted, 'I'd have thought you'd be delighted at the attention.'
'You're wrong. What I wear ain't for seeking blessings.'
'Then what are they?'
'Wards.'
'All of them?'
Koryk nodded. 'They make me invisible. To gods, spirits, demons…'
Bottle studied the soldier through the gloom. 'Well, maybe they don't work.'
'Depends,' he replied.
'On what?'
'Whether we're dead or not.'
Smiles laughed from nearby. 'Koryk's lost his mind. No surprise, it being so small, and things being so dark in there…'
'Not like ghosts and all that,' Koryk said in a sneering tone. 'You think like a ten-year-old, Smiles.'
Bottle winced.
Something skittered off a rock close to Koryk and the soldier started.
'What in Hood's name?'
'That was a knife,' Bottle said, having felt it whip past him. '
Amazing, she saved one for you.'
'More than one,' Smiles said. 'And Koryk, I wasn't aiming for your leg.'
