Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  He’d known she would come after him. Had known she’d find his stash of dolls in the attic. Had known she would make use of the wolf doll, his own anima that he had so carelessly left behind. He’d known… everything.

  That night, in the darkness before dawn, Torahaval decided that she would hate him, for ever more. Passionately, a hatred fierce enough to scour the earth in its entirety.

  It’s easy to hate the clever ones, even if they happen to be kin. Perhaps especially then.

  There was no clear path from that recollection to her life now, to this moment, with the singular exception of the sensation that she was trapped inside a nightmare; one from which, unlike that other nightmare all those years ago, she would never awaken.

  Her brother was not there, laughing and gasping, then finally, convulsed with glee on the rooftop, releasing the sorcery within the wolf doll. Making the pain go away. Her brother, dead or alive – by now more probably dead – was very far away. And she wished, with all her heart, that it wasn’t so.

  Mumbling like a drunk beggar, Bridthok sat before the stained granite-topped table to her right, his long-nailed fingers pushing the strange assortment of gold and silver coins back and forth as he sought to force upon them some means of categorization, a task at which he was clearly failing. The vast chests of coinage in Poliel’s temple were bottomless – not figuratively but literally, they had discovered. And to reach down into the ice-cold darkness was to close hands on frost-rimed gold and silver, in all manner of currency. Stamped bars, studded teeth, holed spheres, torcs and rings, rolled bolts of gold-threaded silk small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, and coins of all sorts: square, triangular, crescent, holed, tubular, along with intricate folding boxes, chains, beads, spools, honeycomb wafers and ingots. Not one of which was familiar to any of them gathered here – trapped here – in the G’danisban temple with its mad, horrendous goddess. Torahaval had no idea there were so many languages in the world, such as she saw inscribed upon much of the currency. Letters like tiny images, letters proceeding diagonally, or vertically, or in spiral patterns, some letters little more than patterns of dots.

  From other realms, Bridthok insisted. The more mundane coins could be found in the eastern chamber behind the altar, an entire room heaped with the damned things. An empire’s treasury in that room alone, the man claimed, and perhaps he was right. With the first rumour of plague, the coffers of Poliel filled to overflowing. But it was the alien coinage that most interested the old man. It had since become Bridthok’s obsession, this Cataloguing of Realms that he claimed would be his final glory of scholarship.

  A strange contrast, this academic bent, in a man for whom ambition and lust for power seemed everything, the very reason for drawing breath, the cage in which his murderous heart paced.

  He had loosed more rumours of his death than anyone she had ever known, a new one every year or so, to keep the many hunters from his trail, he claimed. She suspected he simply took pleasure in the challenge of invention. Among the fools – her co-conspirators – gathered here, Bridthok was perhaps the most fascinating. Neither Septhune Anabhin nor Sradal Purthu encouraged her, in matters of trust or respect. And Sribin, well, Sribin was no longer even recognizable.

  The fate, it seemed, of those whom the Grey Goddess took as mortal lover. And when she tired of the rotted, moaning thing that had once been Sribin, the bitch would select another. From her dwindling store of terrified prisoners. Male, female, adult, child, it mattered naught to Poliel.

  Bridthok insisted the cult of Sha’ik was reborn, invigorated beyond – far beyond – all that had gone before. Somewhere, out there, was the City of the Fallen, and a new Sha’ik, and the Grey Goddess was harvesting for her a broken legion of the mad, for whom all that was mortal belonged to misery and grief, the twin offspring of Poliel’s womb. And, grey in miasma and chaos, blurred by distance, there lurked the Crippled God, twisted and cackling in his chains, ever drawing tighter this foul alliance.

  What knew Torahaval of wars among the gods? She did not even care, beyond the deathly repercussions in her own world, her own life.

  Her younger brother had long ago fallen one way; and she another, and now all hope of escape was gone.

  Bridthok’s mumbling ceased in a sudden gasp. He started in his chair, head lifting, eyes widening.

  A tremor ran through Torahaval Delat. ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

  The old man rose from behind the table. ‘She summons us.’

  I too must be mad – what is there left in life to love? Why do I still grip the edge, when the Abyss offers everything I now yearn for? Oblivion. An end. Gods… an end. ‘More than that, Bridthok,’ she said. ‘You look… aghast.’

  Saying nothing and not meeting her eye, he headed out into the hallway. Cursing under her breath, Torahaval followed.

  Once, long ago, her brother – no more than four, perhaps five years old at the time, long before the evil within him had fully grown into itself – had woken screaming in the night, and she had run to his bedside to comfort him. In child words, he described his nightmare. He had died, yet walked the world still, for he had forgotten something. Forgotten, and no matter what he did, no recollection was possible. And so his corpse wandered, everywhere, with ever the same question on his lips, a question delivered to every single person cursed to cross his path. What? What have I forgotten?

  It had been hard to reconcile that shivering, wide-eyed child hiding in her arms that night with the conniving trickster of only a few years later.

  Perhaps, she now thought as she trailed Bridthok and the train of his flapping, threadbare robes, perhaps in the interval of those few years, Adaephon Delat had remembered what it was he had forgotten. Perhaps it was nothing more than what a corpse still striding the mortal world could not help but forget.

  How to live.

  ‘I thought daytime was supposed to be for sleeping,’ Bottle muttered as his sergeant tugged on his arm yet again. The shade of the boulder he had been curled up beside was, the soldier told himself, the only reason he was still alive. This day had been the hottest yet. Insects crawling on stone slabs had cooked halfway across, shells popping like seeds. No-one moved, no-one said a thing. Thirst and visions of water obsessed the entire troop. Bottle had eventually fallen into a sleep that still pulled at him with torpid, heavy hands.

  If only Fiddler would damned well leave him alone.

  ‘Come with me, Bottle. Up. On your feet.’

  ‘If you’ve found a cask of spring water, Sergeant, then I’m yours. Otherwise…’

  Fiddler lifted him upright, then dragged him along. Stumbling, his tongue feeling like a knot of leather strips, Bottle was barely aware of the path underfoot. Away from the road, among wind-sculpted rocks, winding this way and that. Half-blinded by the glare, it was a moment before he realized that they had stopped, were standing on a clearing of flat sand, surrounded by boulders, and there were two figures awaiting them.

  Bottle felt his heart tighten in his chest. The one seated crosslegged opposite was Quick Ben. To his right squatted the assassin Kalam, his dark face glistening, worn black gloves on his hands and the elongated handles of his twin long-knives jutting out from beneath his arms. The man looked ready to kill something, although Bottle suspected that was his normal expression.

  Quick Ben’s eyes were fixed on him, languid yet dangerous, like a leopard playing with a maimed hare. But there was something else in that regard, Bottle suspected. Something not quite hidden. Fear?

  After a moment of locked gazes, Bottle’s attention was drawn to the collection of dolls perched in the sand before the wizard. Professional interest helped push down his own fear, for the time being, at least. Involuntarily, he leaned forward.

  ‘It’s an old art,’ Quick Ben said. ‘But you know that, don’t you, soldier?’

  ‘You’re at an impasse,’ Bottle said.

  The wizard’s brows lifted, and he shot Kalam an unreadable glance before clearing his throat and say
ing, ‘Aye, I am. How did you see it? And how so… quickly?’

  Bottle shrugged.

  Quick Ben scowled at an amused grunt from Fiddler. ‘All right, you damned imp, any suggestions on what to do about it?’

  Bottle ran a hand through the grimy stubble of his hair. ‘Tell me what you’re trying to do.’

  ‘What I’m trying to do, soldier, is none of your damned business!’

  Sighing, Bottle settled onto the sand, assuming a posture to match that of the man opposite him. He studied the figures, then pointed to one. ‘Who’s she?’

  Quick Ben started. ‘I didn’t know it was a “she”.’

  ‘First one you set down, I’d hazard. You probably woke from a bad dream, all confused, but knowing something was wrong, something somewhere, and this one – this woman – she’s your link to it. Family, I’d hazard. Mother? Daughter? Sister? Sister, yes. She’s been thinking about you. A lot, lately. Look at the skein of shadow lines around her, like she was standing in a thatch of grass, only there ain’t no grass nearby, so that skein belongs to something else.’

  ‘Hood squeeze my balls,’ Quick Ben hissed, eyes now darting among the figures on the sand. He seemed to have forgotten his belligerence. ‘Torahaval? What in the name of the Abyss has she got herself into now? And how come not one of the others can reach a single shadow towards her?’

  Bottle scratched at his beard, fingernails trapping a nit. He pulled it loose and flicked it away.

  Kalam started, then cursed. ‘Watch that!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Bottle pointed at one doll, wrapped in black silks. The shadow the doll cast seemed to reveal two projections of some kind, like crows perched on each shoulder. ‘That’s Apsalar, yes? She’s part of this, all right, though not at the moment. I think her path was meant to cross your sister’s, only it never happened. So, there was intent, unfulfilled, and be glad for that. That one’s Cotillion and aye, he’s dancing his infernal dance all right, but his only role was in starting the pebble from the hilltop – how it rolled and what it picked up on the way down he left to the fates. Still, you’re right in choosing the House of Shadows. Was that instinct? Never mind. Here’s your problem.’ He pointed at another doll, this one hooded and cloaked entirely in gauze-thin black linen.

  Quick Ben blinked, then frowned. ‘Hardly. That’s Shadowthrone, and he’s central to this. It’s all got to do with him and, damn you, Bottle, that’s more than instinct!’

  ‘Oh, he’s central all right, but see how his shadow doesn’t reach?’

  ‘I know it doesn’t reach! But that’s where he stands, damn you!’

  Bottle reached out and collected the doll.

  Snarling, Quick Ben half rose, but Fiddler’s hand snapped out, pushed the wizard back down.

  ‘Get that paw off me, sapper,’ the wizard said, his tone low, even.

  ‘I warned you,’ the sergeant said, ‘didn’t I?’ He withdrew his hand, and Quick Ben settled back as if something much heavier had just landed on his shoulders.

  In the meantime, Bottle was busy reworking the doll. Bending the wires within the arms and legs. For his own efforts, he rarely used wire – too expensive – but in this case they made his reconfiguring the doll much easier. Finally satisfied, he set it back, in precisely the same position as before.

  No-one spoke, all eyes fixed on the doll of Shadowthrone – now on all fours, right foreleg and left rear leg raised, the entire form pitched far forward, impossibly balanced. The shadow stretching out to within a finger’s breadth of the figure that was Torahaval Delat.

  Shadowthrone… now something else…

  Kalam whispered, ‘Still not touching…’

  Bottle settled back, crossing his arms as he lay down on the sand. ‘Wait,’ he said, then closed his eyes, and a moment later was asleep once more.

  Crouched close at Quick Ben’s side, Fiddler let out a long breath.

  The wizard pulled his stare from the reconfigured Shadowthrone, his eyes bright as he looked over at the sapper. ‘He was half asleep, Fid.’

  The sergeant shrugged.

  ‘No,’ the wizard said, ‘you don’t understand. Half asleep. Someone’s with him. Was with him, I mean. Do you have any idea how far back sympathetic magic like this goes? To the very beginning. To that glimmer, that first glimmer, Fid. The birth of awareness. Are you understanding me?’

  ‘As clear as the moon lately,’ Fiddler said, scowling.

  ‘The Eres’al, the Tall Ones – before a single human walked this world. Before the Imass, before even the K’Chain Che’Malle. Fiddler, Eres was here. Now. Herself. With him.’

  The sapper looked back down at the doll of Shadowthrone. Four-legged now, frozen in its headlong rush – and the shadow it cast did not belong, did not fit at all. For the head was broad, the snout prominent and wide, jaws opened but wrapped about something. And whatever that thing was, it slithered and squirmed like a trapped snake.

  What in Hood’s name? Oh. Oh, wait…

  Atop a large boulder that had sheared, creating an inclined surface, Apsalar was lying flat on her stomach, watching the proceedings in the clearing twenty-odd paces distant. Disturbing conversations, those, especially that last part, about the Eres. Just another hoary ancient better left alone. That soldier, Bottle, needed watching.

  Torahaval Delat… one of the names on that spy’s – Mebra’s – list in Ehrlitan. Quick Ben’s sister. Well, that was indeed unfortunate, since it seemed that both Cotillion and Shadowthrone wanted the woman dead, and they usually got what they wanted. Thanks to me… and people like me. The gods place knives into our mortal hands, and need do nothing more.

  She studied Quick Ben, gauging his growing agitation, and began to suspect that the wizard knew something of the extremity that his sister now found herself in. Knew, and, in the thickness of blood that bound kin no matter how estranged, the foolish man had decided to do something about it.

  Apsalar waited no longer, allowing herself to slide back down the flat rock, landing lightly in thick windblown sand, well in shadow and thoroughly out of sight from anyone. She adjusted her clothes, scanned the level ground around her, then drew from folds in her clothing two daggers, one into each hand.

  There was music in death. Actors and musicians knew this as true. And, for this moment, so too did Apsalar.

  To a chorus of woe no-one else could hear, the woman in black began the Shadow Dance.

  Telorast and Curdle, who had been hiding in a fissure near the flat-topped boulder, now edged forward.

  ‘She’s gone into her own world,’ Curdle said, nonetheless whispering, her skeletal head bobbing and weaving, tail flicking with unease. Before them, Not-Apsalar danced, so infused with shadows she was barely visible. Barely in this world at all.

  ‘Never cross this one, Curdle,’ Telorast hissed. ‘Never.’

  ‘Wasn’t planning to. Not like you.’

  ‘Not me. Besides, the doom’s come upon us – what are we going to do?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘I say we cause trouble, Curdle.’

  Tiny jaws clacked. ‘I like that.’

  Quick Ben rose suddenly. ‘I’ve got no choice,’ he said.

  Kalam swore, then said, ‘I hate it when you say that, Quick.’

  The wizard drew out another doll, this one trailing long threads. He set it down a forearm’s reach from the others, then looked over and nodded to Kalam.

  Scowling, the assassin unsheathed one of his long-knives and stabbed it point-first into the sand.

  ‘Not the otataral one, idiot.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Kalam withdrew the weapon and resheathed it, then drew out the other knife. A second stab into the sand.

  Quick Ben knelt, carefully gathering the threads and leading them over to the long-knife’s grip, where he fashioned knots, joining the doll to the weapon. ‘See these go taut—’

  ‘I grab the knife and pull you back here. I know, Quick, this ain’t the first time, remember?’

  ‘Right. Sorry
.’

  The wizard settled back into his crosslegged position..

  ‘Hold on,’ Fiddler said in a growl. ‘What’s going on here? You ain’t planning something stupid, are you? You are. Damn you, Quick—’

  ‘Be quiet,’ the wizard said, closing his eyes. ‘Me and Shadowthrone,’ he whispered, ‘we’re old friends.’ Then he smiled.

  In the clearing, Kalam fixed his gaze on the doll that was now the only link between Quick Ben and his soul. ‘He’s gone, Fid. Don’t say nothing, I need to concentrate. Those strings could go tight at any time, slow, so slow you can’t even see it happen, but suddenly…’

  ‘He should’ve waited,’ Fiddler said. ‘I wasn’t finished saying what I was planning on saying, and he just goes. Kal, I got a bad feeling. Tell me Quick and Shadowthrone really are old friends. Kalam? Tell me Quick wasn’t being sarcastic.’’

  The assassin flicked a momentary look up at the sapper, then licked his lips, returning to his study of the threads. Had they moved? No, not much anyway. ‘He wasn’t being sarcastic, Fid.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘No, more sardonic, I think.’

  ‘Not good. Listen, can you pull him out right now? I think you should—’

  ‘Quiet, damn you! I need to watch. I need to concentrate.’ Fid’s got a bad feeling. Shit.

  Paran and Noto Boil rode up and halted in the shadow cast by the city wall. The captain dismounted and stepped up to the battered façade. With his dagger he etched a broad, arched line, beginning on his left at the wall’s base, then up, over – taking two paces – and down again, ending at the right-side base. In the centre he slashed a pattern, then stepped back, slipping the knife into its scabbard.

  Remounting the horse, he gathered the reins and said, ‘Follow me.’

  And he rode forward. His horse tossed its head and stamped its forelegs a moment before plunging into, and through, the wall. They emerged moments later onto a litter-strewn street. The faces of empty, lifeless buildings, windows stove in. A place of devastation, a place where civilization had crumbled, revealing at last its appallingly weak foundations. Picked white bones lay scattered here and there. A glutted rat wobbled its way along the wall’s gutter.