Reaper's Gale

He studied her for a moment. ‘You shall be forbidden visitors.’

‘Yes.’

‘The shock goes away.’

She looked at him, and he saw in her eyes raw contempt.

‘In its place,’ he continued, ‘comes despair.’

‘Begone, you wretched man.’

Sirryn smiled. ‘Take her cloak. Why should Tomad be the only one to suffer the chill?’

She pushed the guard’s hand away and unlocked the clasp herself.

‘You were foolish enough to refuse the Edur Gift,’ he said, ‘so now you receive’-he waved at the tiny cell with its dripping ceiling, its streaming walls-‘the Letherii gift. Granted with pleasure.’

When she made no reply, Sirryn turned about. ‘Come,’ he said to his guards, ‘let us leave them to their darkness.’

As the last echoes of their footfalls faded, Feather Witch moved out from the cell in which she had been hiding. Guests had arrived in her private world. Unwelcome. These were her corridors; the uneven stones beneath her feet, the slick, slimy walls within her reach, the sodden air, the reek of rot, the very darkness itself-these all belonged to her.

Tomad and Uruth Sengar. Uruth, who had once owned Feather Witch. Well, there was justice in that. Feather Witch was Letherii, after all, and who could now doubt that the grey tide had turned?

She crept out into the corridor, her moccasin-clad feet noiseless on the slumped floor, then hesitated. Did she wish to look upon them? To voice her mockery of their plight? The temptation was strong. But no, better to remain unseen, unknown to them.

And they were now speaking to each other. She drew closer to listen.

‘… not long,’ Tomad was saying. ‘This, more than anything else, wife, forces our hand. Ha

‘Do not be so sure of that,’ Uruth replied. ‘We have not forgotten the truth of the Warlock King’s ambition. This is of his making-’

‘Move past that-there is no choice.’

‘Perhaps. But concessions will be necessary and that will be difficult, for we do not trust him. Oh, he will give his word, no doubt. As you say, there is no choice. But what value Ha

There was a rustle of chains, then Tomad spoke: ‘He did not sound mad, Uruth.’

‘No,’ she replied in a low voice. ‘He did not.’

‘He Was right in his outrage.’

‘Yes.’

‘As were we, on Sepik, when we saw how far our kin had fallen. Their misery, their surrender of all will, all pride, all identity. They were once Tiste Edur! Had we known that from the first-’

‘We would have left them, husband?’

Silence, then: ‘No. Vengeance against the Malazans was necessary. But for our sake, not that of our kin. Rhulad misunderstood that.’

‘He did not. Tomad, those kin suffered the holds of the fleet. They suffered the pits. Rhulad did not misunderstand. We were punishing them for their failure. That, too, was vengeance. Against our very own blood.’

Bitterness now in Tomad’s voice: ‘You said nothing when judgement was cast, wife. Please yourself with this false wisdom if you like. If it is what I must hear from you, then I’d rather silence.’

‘Then, husband, you shall have it.’

Feather Witch eased back. Yes, Ha

She would need to speak with the Errant. With her god.

She would need to force some… concessions.

Smiling, Feather Witch slipped her way up the corridor.

The fate of Tomad and Uruth Sengar drifted through her mind, then passed on, leaving scarce a ripple.

One subterranean tu

The Warlock King’s followers had kept the warrior hidden for some time now, whilst Ha

A strong-willed man. But this will do us well, provided 1 can pound into his skull the fact that impatience is a weakness. A warrior needed resolve, true enough, but there was a time and there was a place, and both had yet to arrive.

Ha

When the Warlock King had first found this chamber, it and at least forty paces of the tu

Ha

At a dreadful cost. Seeking to purge the power of all chaos, of the poisonous breath of the Crippled God, he was almost unequal to the task. His malformed flesh, his twisted bones, the thin, blackened blood in his veins and arteries; these now served the malign world of the Fallen One, forming a symbiosis of life and power. It had been so long since he had last felt-truly felt-the purity of Kurald Emurlahn that, even in its fragmented, weakened state, he very nearly recoiled at its burning touch.

With the air reeking of scorched flesh and singed hair, Ha

Scabandari.

Despairing, knowing that he had failed-

And sudden power, pure and resolute, burgeoned in the chamber. Boiling away the water in roiling gusts of steam, until oven-dry heat crackled from the stone walls. The mud on the floor hardened, cementing the Blackwood shafts.

That heat reached into Ha

It had not healed him; had done nothing to straighten his bones or unclench scarred tissue.

No, it had been more like a promise, a whispering invitation to some blessed future. Fading in a dozen heartbeats, yet the memory of that promise remained with Ha

Scabandari, Father Shadow, still lived. Torn from bone and flesh, true, but the spirit remained. Answering his desperate prayer, gifting this place with sanctity.

I have found the path. I can see the end.

Now he crouched on the hard, desiccated ground and Bruthen Trana-forced to hunch slightly because of the low ceiling-stood at his side. The Warlock King gestured to the centre of the chamber. ‘There, warrior. You must lie down. The ritual is readied, but I warn you, the journey will be long and difficult.’