The Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  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 done. 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 wind-blown 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 cross-legged 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 facade. 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.

  After a long moment, the healer appeared, leading his mount by the reins. 'My horse,' he said, 'is not nearly as stupid as yours, Captain. Alas.'

  'Just less experienced,' Paran said, looking round. 'Get back in the saddle. We may be alone for the moment, but that will not last.'

  'Gods below,' Noto Boil hissed, scrambling back onto his horse. 'What has happened here?'

  'You did not accompany the first group?'

  They rode slowly onto the gate avenue, then in towards the heart of G'danisban.

  'Dujek's foray? No, of cour
se not. And how I wish the High Fist was still in command.'

  Me too. 'The Grand Temple is near the central square —where is Soliel's Temple?'

  'Soliel? Captain Kindly, I cannot enter that place — not ever again.'

  'How did you come to be disavowed, Boil?'

  'Noto Boil, sir. There was a disagreement... of a political nature. It may be that the nefarious, incestuous, nepotistic quagmire of a priest's life well suits the majority of its adherents. Unfortunately, I discovered too late that I could not adapt to such an existence. You must understand, actual worship was the least among daily priorities. I made the error of objecting to this unnatural, nay, unholy inversion.'

  'Very noble of you,' Paran remarked. 'Oddly enough, I heard a different tale about your priestly demise. More specifically, you lost a power struggle at the temple in Kartool. Something about the disposition of the treasury.'

  'Clearly, such events are open to interpretation. Tell me, Captain, since you can walk through walls thicker than a man is tall, do you possess magical sensitivities as well? Can you feel the foul hunger in the air? It is hateful. It wants us, our flesh, where it can take root and suck from us every essence of health. This is Poliel's breath, and even now it, begins to claim us.'

  'We are not alone, cutter.'

  'No. I would be surprised if we were. She will spare her followers, her carriers. She will—'

  'Quiet,' Paran said, reining in. 'I meant, we are not alone right now.'

  Eyes darting, Noto Boil scanned the immediate area. 'There,' he whispered, pointing towards an alley mouth.

  They watched as a young woman stepped out from the shadows of the alley. She was naked, frighteningly thin, her eyes dark, large and luminous. Her lips were cracked and split, her hair wild and braided in filth. An urchin who had survived in the streets, a harvester of the discarded, and yet...

  'Not a carrier,' Paran said in a murmur. 'I see about her... purest health.'

  Noto Boil nodded. 'Aye. In spite of her apparent con­dition. Captain Kindly, this child has been chosen... by Soliel.'

  'I take it, not something you even thought possible, back when you were a priest.'

  The cutter simply shook his head.

  The girl came closer. 'Malazans,' she said, her voice rasping as if from lack of use. 'Once. Years — a year? Once, there were other Malazans. One of them pretended he was a Gral, but I saw the armour under the robes, I saw the sigil of the Bridgeburners, from where I hid beneath a wagon. I was young, but not too young. They saved me, those Malazans. They drew away the hunters. They saved me.'

  Paran cleared his throat. 'And so now Soliel chooses you... to help us.'

  Noto Boil said, 'For she has always blessed those who repay kindness.' The cutter's voice was tremulous with wonder. 'Soliel,' he whispered, 'forgive me.'

  'There are hunters,' the girl said. 'Coming. They know you are here. Strangers, enemies to the goddess. Their leader holds great hatred, for all things. Bone-scarred, broke-faced, he feeds on the pain he delivers. Come with me—'

  'Thank you,' Paran said, cutting in, 'but no. Know that your warning is welcome, but I intend to meet these hunters. I intend to have them lead me to the Grey Goddess.'

  'Brokeface will not permit it. He will kill you, and your horse. Your horse first, for he hates such creatures.'

  Noto Boil hissed. 'Captain, please — this is an offer from Soliel—'

  'The offer I expect from Soliel,' Paran said, tone harden­ing, 'will come later. One goddess at a time.' He readied his horse under him, then hesitated, glanced over at the cutter.

  'Go with her, then. We will meet up at the entrance to the Grand Temple.'

  'Captain, what is it you expect of me?'

  'Me? Nothing. What I expect is for Soliel to make use of you, but not as she has done this child here. I expect some­thing a lot more than that.' Paran nudged his mount forward. 'And,' he added amidst clumping hoofs, 'I won't take no for an answer.'

  ****

  Noto Boil watched the madman ride off, up the main avenue, then the healer swung his horse until facing the girl. He drew the fish spine from his mouth and tucked it behind an ear. Then cleared his throat. 'Goddess.... child. I have no wish to die, but I must point out, that man does not speak for me. Should you smite him down for his dis­respect, I most certainly will not see in that anything unjust or undeserving. In fact—'

  'Be quiet, mortal,' the girl said in a much older voice. 'In that man the entire world hangs in balance, and I shall not be for ever known as the one responsible for altering that condition. In any way whatsoever. Now, prepare to ride — I shall lead, but I shall not once wait for you should you lose the way.'

  'I thought you offered to guide me—'

  'Of lesser priority now,' she said, smirking. 'Inverted in a most unholy fashion, you might say. No, what I seek now is to witness. Do you understand? To witness!' And with that the girl spun round and sped off.

  Swearing, the cutter drove heels into his mount's flanks, hard on the girl's trail.

  ****

  Paran rode at a canter down the main avenue that seemed more a processional route into a necropolis than G'danisban's central artery, until he saw ahead a mob of figures fronted by a single man — in his hands a farmer's scythe from which dangled a blood-crusted horse-tail. The motley army — perhaps thirty or forty in all — looked as if they had been recruited from a paupers' burial pit. Covered in sores and weals, limbs twisted, faces slack, the eyes glittering with madness. Some carried swords, others butcher's cleavers and knives, or spears, shepherd's crooks or stout branches. Most seemed barely able to stand.

  Such was not the case with their leader, the one the girl had called Brokeface. The man's visage was indeed pinched misshapen, flesh and bones folded in at right lower jaw, then across the face, diagonally, to the right cheekbone. He had been bitten, the captain realized, by a horse.

  ... your horse first. For he hates such creatures...

  In that ruined face, the eyes, misaligned in the sunken pits of their sockets, burned bright as they fixed on Paran's own. Something like a smile appeared on the collapsed cave of the man's mouth.

  'Her breath is not sweet enough for you? You are strong to so resist her. She would know, first, who you are. Before,' his smile twisted further, 'before we kill you.'

  'The Grey Goddess does not know who I am,' Paran said, 'for this reason. From her, I have turned away. From me she can compel nothing.'

  Brokeface flinched. 'There is a beast... in your eyes. Reveal yourself, Malazan. You are not as the others.'

  'Tell her,' Paran said, 'I come to make an offering.'

  The head cocked to one side. 'You seek to appease the Grey Goddess?'

  'In a manner of speaking. But I should tell you, we have very little time.'

  'Very little? Why?'

  'Take me to her and I will explain. But quickly.'

  'She does not fear you.'

  'Good.'

  The man studied Paran for a moment longer, then he gestured with his scythe. 'Follow, then.'

  ****

  There had been plenty of altars before which she had knelt over the years, and from them, one and all, Torahaval Delat had discovered something she now held to be true. All that is worshipped is but a reflection of the worshipper. A single god, no matter how benign, is tortured into a multitude of masks, each shaped by the secret desires, hungers, fears and joys of the individual mortal, who but plays a game of obsequious approbation.

  Believers lunged into belief. The faithful drowned in their faith.

  And there was another truth, one that seemed on the surface to contradict the first one. The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god's name. And see in them­selves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands.

  Torahaval's hands were bloodstained, figuratively now bu
t once most literally. Driven to fill some vast, empty space in her soul, she had lunged, she had drowned; she had looked for some external hand of salvation — seeking what she could not find in herself. And, whether benign and love-swollen or brutal and painful, every god's touch had felt the same to her — barely sensed through the numbed obsession that was her need.

  She had stumbled onto this present path the same way she had stumbled onto so many others, yet this time, it seemed there could be no going back. Every alternative, every choice, had vanished before her eyes. The first strands of the web had been spun more than fourteen months ago, in her chosen home city Karashimesh, on the shores of the inland Karas Sea — a web she had since, in a kind of lustful wilfulness, allowed to close ever tighter.

  The sweet lure from the Grey Goddess, in spirit now the poisoned lover of the Chained One — the seduction of the flawed had proved so very inviting. And deadly. For us both. This was, she realized as she trailed Bridthok down the Aisle of Glory leading to the transept, no more than the spreading of legs before an inevitable, half-invited rape. Regret would come later if at all.

  Perhaps, then, a most appropriate end.

  For this foolish woman, who never learned how to live.

  The power of the Grey Goddess swirled in thick tendrils through the battered-down doorway, so virulent as to rot stone.

  Awaiting Bridthok and Torahaval at the threshold were the remaining acolytes of this desperate faith. Septhune Anabhin of Omari; and Sradal Purthu, who had fled Y'Ghatan a year ago after a failed attempt to kill that Malazan bitch, Dunsparrow. Both looked shrunken, now, some essence of their souls drained away, dissolving in the miasma like salt in water. Pained terror in their eyes as both turned to watch Bridthok and Torahaval arrive.

  'Sribin is dead,' Septhune whispered. 'She will now choose another.'

  And so she did.

  Invisible, a hand huge and clawed — more fingers than could be sanely conceived — closed about Torahaval's chest, spears of agony sinking deep. A choked gasp burst from her throat and she staggered forward, pushing through the others, all of whom shrank back, gazes swimming with relief and pity — the relief far outweighing the pity. Hatred for them flashed through Torahaval, even as she staggered into the altar chamber; eyes burning in the acid fog of pestilence she lifted her head, and looked upon Poliel.