Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

‘ For all that, mortal, give me a good game. ’

‘And what do I get in return? Never mind respect, either. What do I get back?’

‘ Only that which you find. Undeniable truths. Unwavering regard of the sorrows that plague a life. The sigh of acceptance. The end of fear. ’

The end of fear. Even for such a young man, such an inexperienced man, Deadsmell understood the value of such a gift. The end of fear.

‘Do not be cruel with Hester Vill, I beg you.’

‘ I am not one for wilful cruelty, mortal. Yet his soul will feel sorely abused, and for that I can do nothing. ’

‘I understand. It is Fener who should be made to answer for that betrayal.’

He sensed wry amusement in Hood. ‘ One day, even the gods will answer to death. ’

Deadsmell blinked in the sudden gloom as the fire ebbed, flickered, vanished. He peered at Vill and saw that the old man breathed no more. His expression was frozen in a distraught, broken mask. Four black spots had burned his brow.

The world didn’t give much. And what it did give it usually took back way too soon. And the hands stung with absence, the eyes that looked out were as hollow as the places they found. Sunlight wept down through drifts of dust, and a man could sit waiting to see his god, when waiting was all he had left.

Deadsmell was kicking through his memories, a task best done in solitude. Drawn to this overgrown, abandoned ruin in the heart of Letheras, with its otherworldly insects, its gaping pits and its root-bound humps of rotted earth, he wandered as if lost. The Lord of Death was reaching into this world once again, swirling a finger through pools of mortal blood. But Deadsmell remained blind to the patterns so inscribed, this intricate elaboration on the old game.

He found that he feared for his god. For Hood, his foe, his friend. The only damned god he respected.

The necromancer’s game was one that others could not understand. To them it was the old rat dodging the barn cat, a one-sided hunt bound in mutual hatred. It was nothing like that, of course. Hood didn’t despise necromancers-the god knew that no one else truly understood him and his last-of-last worlds. Ducking the black touch, stealing back souls, mocking life with the animation of corpses-they were the vestments of true worship. Because true worship was, in its very essence, a game.

“ ‘There is no bargain when only one side pays attention.’ ”

Moments after voicing that quote, Deadsmell grunted in sour amusement. Too much irony in saying such a thing to ghosts, especially in a place so crowded with them as here, less than a dozen paces from the gate to the Azath House.

He had learned that Brys Beddict had been slain, once, only to be dragged back. A most bitter gift, it was a wonder the King’s brother hadn’t gone mad. When a soul leaves the path, a belated return has the fool stumbling again and again. Every step settling awkwardly, as if the imprint of one’s own foot no longer fit it, as if the soul no longer matched the vessel of its flesh and bone and was left jarred, displaced.

And now he had heard about a woman cursed undead. Ruthan Gudd had gone so far as to hint that he’d bedded the woman-and how sick was that? Deadsmell shook his head. As bad as sheep, cows, dogs, goats and fat bhokarala. No, even worse. And did she want the curse unravelled? No-at least with that he had to agree. It does no good to come back. One gets used to things staying the same, more used to that than how a living soul felt about its own sagging, decaying body. Besides, the dead never come back all the way. ‘It’s like knowing the secret to a trick, the wonder goes away. They’ve lost all the delusions that once comforted them.’

‘Deadsmell!’

He turned to see Bottle picking his way round the heaps and holes.

‘Heard you saying something-ghosts never got anything good to say, why bother talking with them?’

‘I wasn’t.’

The young mage reached him and then stood, staring at the old Jaghut tower. ‘Did you see the baggage train forming up outside the city? Gods, we’ve got enough stuff to handle an army five times our size.’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

Bottle grunted. ‘That’s what Fiddler said.’

‘We’ll be marching into nowhere. Resupply will be hard to manage, maybe impossible.’

‘Into nowhere, that seems about right.’

Deadsmell pointed at the Azath House. ‘They went in there, I think.’

‘Sinn and Grub?’

‘Aye.’

‘Something snatch them?’

‘I don’t think so. I think they went through, the way Kellanved and Dancer learned how to do.’

‘Where?’

‘No idea, and no, I have no plans to follow them. We have to consider them lost. Permanently.’

Bottle glanced at him. ‘You throw that at the Adjunct yet?’

‘I did. She wasn’t happy.’

‘I bet she wasn’t.’ He scratched at the scraggy beard he seemed intent on growing. ‘So tell me why you think they went in there.’

Deadsmell grimaced. ‘I remember the day I left my home. A damned ram had got on to the roof of my house-the house I inherited, I mean. A big white bastard, eager to hump anything with legs. The look it gave me was empty and full, if you know what I mean-’

‘No. All right, yes. When winter’s broken-the season, and those eyes.’

‘Empty and full, and from its perch up there it had a damned good view of the graveyard, all three tiers, from paupers to the local version of nobility. I’d just gone and buried the village priest-’

‘Hope he was dead when you did it.’

‘Some people die looking peaceful. Others die all too knowing. Empty and full. He didn’t know until he did his dying, and that kind of face is the worst kind to look down on.’ He scowled. ‘The worst kind, Bottle.’

‘Go on.’

‘What have you got to be impatient about, soldier?’

Bottle flinched. ‘Sorry. Nothing.’

‘Most impatient people I meet are just like that, once you kick through all the attitude. They’re in a lather, in a hurry about nothing. The rush is in their heads, and they expect everyone else to up the pace and get the fuck on with it. I got no time for such shits.’

‘They make you impatient, do they?’

‘No time, I said. Meaning the more they push, the longer I take.’

Bottle flashed a grin. ‘I hear you.’

‘Good.’ Deadsmell paused, working back round to his thoughts. ‘That ram, looming up there, well, it just hit me, those eyes. We all got them, I think, some worse than others. For the priest, they came late-but the promise was there, all his life. Same for everyone. You see that it’s empty, and that revelation fills you up.’

‘Wait-what’s empty?’

‘The whole Hood-forsaken mess, Bottle. All of it.’

‘Well now, aren’t you a miserable crudge, Deadsmell.’

‘I’ll grant you, this particular place eats on me, chews up memories I’d figured were long buried. Anyway, there I was, standing. Ram on one side, the priest’s tomb on the other-high ridge, highest I could find-and the highborn locals were going to howl when they saw that. But I didn’t care any longer.’

‘Because you left that day.’

‘Aye. Down to Li Heng, first in line at the recruiting office. A soldier leaves the dead behind and the ones a soldier does bury, well, most of the time they’re people that soldier knows.’

‘We don’t raise battlefield barrows for just our own dead.’

‘That’s not what I mean by “knowing”, Bottle. Ever look down on an enemy’s face, a dead one, I mean?’

‘A few times, aye.’

‘What did you see?’

Bottle shifted uneasily, squinted at the tower again. ‘Point taken.’