After a time turning corners and crossing large chambers — meeting places, or assemblies, Orchid thought them — she sent them climbing up against the Spawn’s slant to what she said was a large building front across a broad open court. ‘Do you even know where you’re going?’ Antsy finally complained.
‘Malakai is there, waiting,’ she said; then, rather impatiently, ‘I’ve been keeping us to the main ways, you know!’
Antsy now said aloud what had been bothering him for some time: ‘Then where is everyone? The place is deserted! Where’re these Malazans? Where’s anyone?’
‘How in the name of-’ She stopped herself. ‘How should I know?’
Antsy just grumbled. Again it seemed the constant straining to see in the utter dark was giving him hallucinations. Lights blossomed before his eyes. Shapes of deepest blue seemed to waver in his vision like ghosts. He silently fumed against it all. What a fool I was for throwing myself into this. A bad start before a worse end! I’m gonna die in the dark like a blasted worm.
‘You made it,’ Malakai said blandly from the dark. Antsy pulled up sharply. The observation was neither a compliment nor a complaint. ‘This looks to be some sort of large complex. We should take a look.’
‘I’m not so sure we should go in there,’ Orchid said, sounding worried.
‘Not for you to say. Corien, perhaps you can sit down inside, in any case.’
The lad managed a tight, ‘Certainly. That would be … most welcome.’
‘We are agreed then.’
‘Which way?’ Antsy rasped, his throat dry — already they were getting low on water.
‘There are stairs up,’ Orchid said.
He slid his foot ahead until he bumped up against the first, then he carefully felt his way up until Orchid told him he was on the last. ‘This is a very wide doorway, tall too,’ she murmured. ‘Open double doors. Inside is a kind of arcade with many side openings and corridors.’
Shit. This could take for ever. ‘Look, Malakai,’ he grumbled, ‘it would help if we knew what we were looking for … Malakai …?’
‘He’s gone.’
Osserc-damned useless whore’s son! That’s fucking well it! He pulled off his rolled blanket and began rummaging through it.
‘What are you doing?’ Orchid asked.
‘I’m getting the lantern.’
‘Malakai said-’
‘Malakai can dick himself with his own-’ Antsy bit off his words, cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, lass. Malakai isn’t here, is he?’
He set the lantern on the stone floor, pulled out his set of flints and tinder and began striking. The sparks startled him at first, so huge and bright were they. Light deprivation — seen it before in the mines. Have to shield the lantern. In moments he had the tinder glowing: that alone seemed light enough. He took up a pinch of the lint and shavings and held them to the wick and blew. Once the wick caught he blew again, steadily, pinched out the tinder and shoved it away back into its box, which he snapped shut.
The lantern’s flame blossomed to life and he had to turn his face away, so harsh was the golden light. Blinking, squinting against the pain the light struck in his eyes, he could eventually see and what he saw took his breath away.
Everything was black, yes, but not plain or grim. The walls, the columns of the carved stone arcades, all writhed with intricate carving. Stone vines climbed the walls, delicate stone leaves seemed to wave before his eyes. Bowers of trees, all carved from the glittering finely grained black stone, arched over a second-storey walkway above.
Then he saw the smooth polished floor and he frowned. Dust covered it, but so too did a litter of broken pots and scattered furniture. No looting here. Why?
In the light, Corien shuffled over to a side alcove of carved benches and sat down, hissing his pain. Antsy set the lantern on the bench next to him. The lad squinted his puzzlement. His face gleamed sickly pale, sheathed in sweat. ‘You keep the light,’ Antsy told him. ‘I’ll have a poke around.’ Corien drew breath to object but Antsy held out his sword, pommel first. Offering a tired smile, Corien took it. ‘Look after Orchid here while I’m gone.’
Orchid had the sense not to object to that bit of chauvinism.
Shortsword out, Antsy picked his way through the litter. It was a large main entrance hall, or gathering chamber. Halls opened off it all around. Stairs led down and up from it on both the right and the left. The stairs were intricately carved, the balusters with vines and blossoms. His light-starved eyes made out much more in the weak light than he knew he could’ve normally; as on a night of a full moon or a fresh snow. In places the floor bore carved designs like grille-work or lattices bearing foliage.
Far off across the chamber the lantern glowed like a star. Next to it Orchid paced restlessly. Antsy found an overturned chest or travel box, its contents of cloth spilled across the floor. He kicked through the dark rich robes. Damn me if I don’t know what’s valuable or not! A Togg-damned waste of time this is.
Something about the nearby stairs caught his attention and he crossed to them. The dust was disturbed here. Not by tracks, but brushed aside, as if disturbed by a wind or the dragging of a wide cloth. He decided to follow as far the light extended. The stairs brought him to a floor just beneath the main one. Here light streamed down through the carvings in the floor above, casting illuminated scenes of bowers of trees across another smooth floor. An intended effect, Antsy wondered? Did lamps or such like burning above cast the same shadows when this place was occupied? He walked out on to the floor.
An object gleamed in the light streaming down. A stick of some kind. Antsy walked up and crouched over it. A bone. A leg bone. A human tibia. And not clean, either. Tangles of ligaments and dried meat still clung to its ends.
He straightened, swallowed the bile churning sickly in his stomach. A dense glow now shone from the far end of the chamber. Fascinated, unable to turn away, he edged closer until the light was sufficient to reveal a carpet of similar remains choking the far side. The shadows of alien blossoms streamed down upon a mass of human carcasses. Many still wore their helmets. Their feet remained in boots. The meat of calf and thigh was gone, as were the viscera from empty gutted chests and abdomens. Ribcages gaped like open mouths hanging with desiccated strips of flesh and meat. Antsy had seen similar remains after battles where scavengers had picked over the dead, taking the choice bits and leaving the rest.
He choked back a yell of alarm and ran for the stairs.
Not looted. Avoided! Everyone else knows better! And Panar sent us here! To our damned deaths.
He came pelting back to Orchid and Corien, who stared, tensing in alarm. ‘What is it?’ Orchid demanded, rising.
‘We have to get out of here — now!’
‘What-’
‘That — thing — everyone was scared of below. I think this is its lair. We have to go.’ He snatched up the lantern, took Corien by the arm. ‘Come on.’
He chivvied them back up the hall to the doors. Here Orchid suddenly let out a cry and froze. Antsy let go of Corien, drew his shortsword. He squinted, seeing nothing. ‘What?’
Hand at mouth, the girl stammered, ‘The door.’
Antsy peered at the doorway anew. What of it? Dark, yes, but … Dark. The light did not penetrate. Something was blocking the entrance, something utterly black like a curtain of night. ‘What is it?’
But Orchid could not speak. She merely jerked her head side to side, appalled, eyes huge.
Shit. Antsy hefted his shortsword. Somehow he didn’t think it would do him much good. And munitions? Probably not them either. He looked to Corien; that finely curled hair now hung down sweat-plastered. The lad met his eye and nodded, hand tightening on his swordgrip.