Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

'Quite an understatement, Lord.' Whiskeyjack said nothing for a time, then he sighed. 'Leading us back to Ganoes Paran and the House of Chains. All right, I understand why you want him to deny the Crippled God's gambit. I should warn you, however, Paran doesn't take orders well.'

'We must hope, then, that he sees which course is wisest. Will you advise him on our behalf?'

'I'll try.'

'Tell me, Whiskeyjack,' Rake said in a different tone, 'do you ever find the voice of a river unsettling?'

The Malazan frowned. 'To the contrary, I find it calming.'

'Ah. This, then, points to the essential difference between us.'

Between mortals and immortals? Beru fend. Anomander Rake, I know precisely what you need. 'I've a small cask of Gredfallan ale, Lord. I would like to retrieve it, now, if you don't mind waiting?'

'A sound plan, Whiskeyjack.'

And by dawn, may you find the voice grown calm.

The Malazan turned and made his way back to the encampment. As he approached the first row of tents, he paused and turned back to look at the distant figure, standing tall and motionless on the grassy ridge.

The sword Dragnipur, strapped crossways on Anomander Rake's back, hung like an elongated cross, surrounded in its own breath of preternatural darkness.

Alas, I don't think Gredfallan ale will be enough.

'And which warren will you choose for this?'

Quick Ben studied the sprawled bodies and the tumbled, blood-stained stones of the city wall. Spot-fires were visible through the gap, smoke blotting the night sky above dark, seemingly lifeless buildings. 'Rashan, I think,' he said.

'Shadow. I should have guessed.' Talamandas scrambled atop a heap of corpses then turned to look at the wizard. 'Shall we proceed?'

Quick Ben opened the warren, tightly leashed, and held it close about him. The sorcery swallowed him in shadows. Talamandas snickered, then approached.

'I shall ride your shoulder for this, yes?'

'If you insist,' the wizard grumbled.

'You leave me little choice. To control a warren by tumbling it before you and sweeping it up behind you may well reveal your mastery, but I am left with little room to manoeuvre within it. Though why we need bother with warrens at all right now is beyond me.'

'I need the practice. Besides, I hate being noticed.' Quick Ben gestured. 'Climb aboard, then.'

The sticksnare clambered up the wizard's leg, set its feet of bound twine on his belt, then dragged itself up Quick Ben's tunic. The weight, as Talamandas settled on his left shoulder, was insubstantial. Twig fingers closed on his collar. 'I can handle a tumble or two,' the sticksnare said, 'but don't make a habit of it.'

Quick Ben moved forward, slipping through the gap in the wall. The firelight threw stark slashes through the shadows, randomly painting glimpses of the wizard's body. Deep shadow cutting through any firelit scene would have been noticeable. He concentrated on blending into what surrounded him.

Flame, smoke and ashes. Vague moans from collapsed buildings; a few streets away, the mourning chant of Barghast.

'The Pannions are all gone,' Talamandas whispered. 'Why the need to hide?'

'It's my nature. Caution keeps me alive, now be quiet.'

He entered a street lined by Daru estates. While other avenues evinced the efforts of the White Face tribes to clear away bodies, no such task had taken place here. Pannion soldiery lay dead in appalling numbers, heaped around one estate in particular, its blackened gatehouse a maw ringed in dried blood. A low wall ran to either side of the gate. Dark, motionless figures stood guard along it, apparently perched on some kind of walkway halfway up the other side.

Crouched at the foot of another building, sixty paces away, Quick Ben studied the scene. The bitter breath of sorcery still clung to the air. On his shoulder, Talamandas hissed in sudden recognition.

'The necromancers! The ones who tore me from my barrow!'

'I thought you had nothing to fear from them any more,' Quick Ben murmured.

'I don't, but that does nothing to diminish my hatred or disgust.'

'That's unfortunate, because I want to talk to them.'

'Why?'

'To take their measure, why else?'

'Idiocy, Wizard. Whatever they are, is nothing good.'

'And I am? Now let me think.'

'You'll never get past those undead guards.'

'When I say let me think, I mean shut up.'

Grumbling, shifting about on Quick Ben's shoulder, Talamandas reluctantly subsided.

'We'll need a different warren for this,' the wizard finally said. 'The choice is this: Hood's own, or Aral Gamelon-'

'Aral what? I've never heard-'

'Demonic. Most conjurors who summon demons are opening a path to Gamelon — though they probably don't know it, not by its true name, anyway. Granted, one can find demons in other warrens — the Aptorians of Shadow, for example. But the Korvalahrai and the Galayn, the Empire's favoured, are both of Gamelon. Anyway, if my instincts are accurate, there's both kinds of necromancy present in that estate — you did say there were two of them, didn't you?'

'Aye, and two kinds of madness.'

'Sounds interesting.'

'This is a whim! Have you learned nothing from your multiple souls, Wizard? Whims are deadly. Do something for no reason but curiosity and it closes like a wolf's jaws on your throat. And even if you manage to escape, it haunts you. For ever.'

'You talk too much, Sticksnare. I've made my decision. Time to move.' He folded the warren of Rashan about himself, then stepped forward.

'Ashes in the urn!' Talamandas hissed.

'Aye, Hood's own. Comforted by the familiarity? It's the safer choice, since Hood himself has blessed you, right?'

'I am not comforted.'

That wasn't too surprising, as Quick Ben studied the transformation around him. Death ran riot in this city. Souls crowded the streets, trapped in cycles of their own last moments of life. The air was filled with shrieks, wailing, the chop of weapons, the crushing collapse of stone and the suffocating smoke. Layered beneath this were countless other deaths — those that were set down, like successive snowfalls, on any place where humans gathered. Generation upon generation.

Yet, Quick Ben slowly realized, this conflagration was naught but echoes, the souls themselves ghostly. 'Gods below,' he murmured in sudden understanding. 'This is but memory — what the stones of the streets and buildings hold, memories of the air itself. The souls — they've all gone through Hood's Gate …'

Talamandas was motionless on his shoulder. 'You speak true, Wizard,' he muttered. 'What has happened here? Who has taken all these dead?'

'Taken, aye, under wing. They've been blessed, one and all, their pain ended. Is this the work of the Mask Council?'

The sticksnare spat, 'Those fools? Not likely.'

Quick Ben said nothing for a time, then he sighed. 'Capustan might recover, after all. I didn't think that was possible. Well, shall we walk with these ghosts?'

'Do we have to?'

Not replying, Quick Ben strode forward. The undead guards — Seerdomin and Urdomen — were dark smears, stains on Hood's own warren. But they were blind to his presence in the realm where the wizard now walked. Of the two necromancers residing within, one was now negated.

The only risk remaining was if the other one — the summoner — had released any demons to supplement the estate's defences.

Quick Ben strode through the gateway. The compound before him was clear of any bodies, though caked blood coated the flagstones here and there.

Twig fingers spasmed tight on his shoulder. 'I smell-'

The Sirinth demon had been squatting in front of the main house doors, draped in the lintel stone's shadow. It now grunted and heaved its bulk clear of the landing, coming into full view. Swathed in folds of toad-like skin, splay-limbed, with a wide, low head that was mostly jaws and fangs, the Sirinth massed more than a bhederin bull. In short bursts, however, it could be lightning fast.