Deadhouse Gates

'This storm — we're being blown off course. A long way.'

'Meaning?'

'Seems we'll be making for a different port once it's spent.'

'Not Unta.'

'Oh, eventually, of course.'

The assassin's gaze fell to the captain. He looked unhappy, but resigned. Kalam conjured a map of Quon Tali in his mind, studied it a moment, then sighed. 'Malaz City. The island.'

'Never seen that legendary cesspool before,' Elan said. 'I can't wait. I trust you'll be generous enough to show me all the sights, friend.'

Kalam stared at the man, then smiled. 'Count on it, Salk Elan.'

They had paused for a rest, almost inured to the curdling cries and screams rising from other paths of the maze. Mappo lowered Icarium to the ground and knelt beside his unconscious friend. Tremorlor's desire for the Jhag was palpable. The Trell closed his eyes. The Nameless Ones have guided us here, delivering Icarium to the Azath as they would a goat to a hill god. Yet it is not their hands that will be bloodied by the deed. I am the one who will be stained by this.

He struggled to conjure the image of the destroyed town — his birthplace — but it was now haunted by shadows. Doubt had replaced conviction. He no longer believed his own memories. Foolish! Icarium has taken countless lives. Whatever the truth behind my town's death. .

His hands clenched.

My tribe — the shoulder-women — would not betray me. What weight can be placed on Icarium's dreams? The Jhag remembers nothing. Nothing real. His equanimity softens truth, blurs the edges. . smears every colour, until the memory is daubed anew. Thus. It is lcarium's kindness that has snared me. .

Mappo's fists ached. He looked down at his companion, studied the expression of peaceful repose on the Jhag's blood-smeared face.

Tremorlor shall not have you. I am not to be so used. If the Nameless Ones would deliver you, then they shall have to come for you themselves, and through me first.

He looked up, glared into the heart of the maze. Tremorlor. Reach for him with your roots, and they shall feel the rage of a Trell warrior, his battle dream unleashed, ancient spirits riding his flesh in a dance of murder. This I promise, and so you are warned.

'It's said,' Fiddler murmured beside him, 'that the Azath have taken gods.'

Mappo fixed the soldier with hooded eyes.

Fiddler squinted as he studied the riotous walls on all sides. 'What Elder gods — their names forgotten for millennia — are caged here? When did they last see light? When were they last able to move their limbs? Can you imagine an eternity thus endured?' He shifted the weight of the crossbow in his hands. 'If Tremorlor dies.. imagine the madness unleashed upon the world.'

The Trell was silent for a moment, then he whispered, 'What are these darts that you fling at me?'

Fiddler's brows rose. 'Darts? None intended. This place sits on me like a cloak of vipers, that is all.'

'Tremorlor has no hunger for you, soldier.'

Fiddler's grin was crooked. 'Sometimes it pays being a nobody.'

'Now you mock in truth.'

The sapper's grin fell away. 'Widen your senses, Trell. Tremorlor's is not the only hunger here. Every prisoner in these walls of wood feels our passage. They might well flinch from you and Icarium, but no such fear constrains their regard for the rest of us.'

Mappo looked away. 'Forgive me. I've spared little thought for anyone else, as you have noted. Still, do not think I would hesitate in defending you if the need arose. I am not one to diminish the honour that is your companionship.'

Fiddler gave a sharp nod, straightened. 'A soldier's pragmatism. I had to know one way or the other.'

'I understand.'

'Sorry if I offended you.'

'Naught but a knife-tip's prod — you've stirred me to wakefulness.'

Iskaral Pust, squatting a few paces away, sputtered. 'Muddy the puddle, oh yes! Yank his loyalties this way and that — excellent! Witness the strategy of silence — while the intended victims unravel each other in pointless, divisive discourse. Oh yes, I have learned much from Tremorlor, and so assume a like strategy. Silence, a faint mocking smile suggesting I know more than I do, an air of mystery, yes, and fell knowledge. None could guess my confusion, my host of deluded illusions and elusive delusions! A mantle of marble hiding a crumbling core of sandstone. See how they stare at me, wondering — all wondering — at my secret wellspring of wisdom …'

'Let's kill him,' Crokus muttered, 'if only to put him out of our misery.'

'And sacrifice such entertainment?' Fiddler growled. He resumed his place at point. 'Time to go.'

'The blathering of secrets,' the High Priest of Shadow uttered in a wholly different voice, 'so they judge me ineffectual.'

The others spun to face him.

Iskaral Pust offered a beatific smile.

A swarm of wasps rose above the tangled root wall, sped over their heads and past — paying them no heed. Fiddler felt his heart thud back into place. He drew a shuddering breath. There were some D'ivers that he feared more than others. Beasts are one thing, but insects. .

He glanced back at the others. Icarium hung limp in Mappo's arms. The Jhag's head was stained with blood. The Trell's gaze reached beyond the sapper to the edifice that awaited them. Mappo's expression was twisted with anguish, so thoroughly unmasked and vulnerable that the Trell's face was a child's face, with an attendant need that was all the more demanding for being wholly unconscious. A mute appeal that was difficult to resist.

Fiddler shook himself, pushing his attention past Mappo and his burden. Apsalar, her father and Crokus stood ranged behind the Trell in a protective cordon while beyond them were the Hounds and Iskaral Pust. Five pairs of bestial eyes and one human burned with intent — dubious allies, our rearguard. Talk about a badly timed schism — and that intent was fixed on the unconscious body in Mappo's arms.

Icarium himself wished it, and in so saying rendered the Trell's heart. The price of acquiescence is as nothing to the pain of refusal. Yet Mappo will surrender his life to this, and we're likely to do the same. None of us — not even Apsalar — is cold-hearted enough to stand back, to see the Jhag taken. Hood's breath, we are fools, and Mappo the greatest fool of us all. .

'What's on your mind, Fid?' Crokus asked, his tone suggesting he had a pretty good idea.

'Sappers got a saying,' he muttered. 'Wide-eyed stupid.'

The Daru slowly nodded.

In other paths of the maze, the taking had begun. Shapeshifters — the most powerful of them, the survivors who'd made it this far — had begun their assault on the House of the Azath. A cacophony of screams echoed in the air, battering their senses. Tremorlor defended itself the only way it could, by devouring, by imprisoning — but there are too many, coming too quickly — wood snapped, woven cages shattered, the sound was of a forest being destroyed, branch by branch, tree by tree, an inexorable progression, closer, ever closer to the House itself.

'We're running out of time!' hissed Iskaral Pust, the Hounds moving in agitation around him. 'Things are coming up behind us. Things! How much clearer can I be?'

'We may still need him,' Fiddler said.

'Oh, aye!' the High Priest responded. 'The Trell can throw him like a sack of grain!'

'I can bring him around quickly enough,' Mappo growled. 'I still carry some of those Denul elixirs from your temple, Iskaral Pust.'

'Let's get moving,' the sapper said. Something was indeed coming up behind them, making the air redolent with sickly spice. The Hounds had pulled their attention from Mappo and Icarium and now faced the other way, revealing restless nerves as they shifted position. The trail made a sharp bend twenty paces from where the huge beasts stood.