Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

'Not necessarily. You need only tell me everything, and we can continue in this civil fashion.'

'I'm afraid that won't be possible,' the Malazan replied. 'None the less, I will inform you that the entity poisoning the warrens is the Crippled God. You will have to consider … retaliation … against him. Rather sooner than you might think.'

'Thank you. I'll not deny I am impressed by your mastery of six warrens, Quick Ben. In retrospect, you should have held back on at least half of what you command.' The man made to rise.

'But, Bauchelain,' the wizard replied, 'I did.'

The divan, and the man on it, fared little better when struck by the power of a half-dozen bound warrens than had the wall and Korbal Broach moments earlier.

Quick Ben met Emancipor Reese in the smoky hallway leading to the estate's front doors. The servant had wrapped a cloth around the lower half of his face, his eyes streaming as he squinted at the wizard.

'Your masters require your attention, Emancipor.'

'They're alive?'

'Of course. Although smoke inhalation-'

The servant pushed past Quick Ben. 'What is wrong with all of you?' he barked.

'What do you mean?' the Malazan asked after him.

Emancipor half turned. 'Ain't it obvious? When you swat a wasp to the ground, you then use your heel, right? Otherwise, you're liable to get stung!'

'Are you encouraging me to kill your masters?'

'You're all Hood-damned idiots, that's what you are! Clean this up, Mancy! Scrub that down! Bury this in the garden! Pack those trunks — we're leaving in a hurry! It's my curse — no-one kills them! You think I like my job? Idiots! You think-'

The old man was still roaring as Quick Ben retreated outside.

Talamandas awaited him on the threshold. 'He's right, you know-'

'Quiet,' the wizard snapped.

In the courtyard beyond, the undead guards had all toppled from the walkway on the wall and lay sprawled on the flagstones, but movement was returning to them. Limbs wavered and twitched. Like armoured beetles on their backs. We'd better get out of here. Because, now, I am all used up.

'I'd almost moved to that wall you destroyed, you know.'

'That would have been very unfortunate,' Quick Ben replied. 'Climb aboard — we're leaving.'

'Finally, some wisdom!'

Bauchelain's eyes opened. Emancipor looked down on him.

'We're in the garden, master,' the servant said. 'I dragged you and Korbal out. Doused the fire, too. Got to go open all the windows now …'

'Very good, Emancipor,' the grey-bearded necromancer groaned after a moment. 'Emancipor,' he called when the servant made to move away.

'Master?'

'I confess … to a certain … confusion. Do we possess some chronic flaw, Emancipor?'

'Sir?'

'Underestima- oh, never mind, Emancipor. Be about your tasks, then.'

'Aye, master.'

'Oh, and you've earned a bonus for your efforts — what do you wish?'

The servant stared down at Bauchelain for a dozen heartbeats, then he shook his head. 'It's all right, master. Part of my job. And I'll be about it, now.'

The necromancer raised his head to watch the old man trudge back into the house. 'Such a modest man,' he breathed. He looked down the length of his tattered, bruised body, and raggedly sighed. 'What's left in my wardrobe, I wonder?'

Insofar as he could recall — and given recent events — not much.

Shrouded once more in shadow, Quick Ben made his way down the rubble-littered street. Most of the fires had either died down or been extinguished, and not one of the remaining structures showed any light behind shutters or from gaping windows. The stars commanded the night sky, though darkness ruled the city.

'Damned eerie,' Talamandas whispered.

The wizard softly grunted. 'That's rich, coming from someone who's spent generations in an urn in the middle of a barrow.'

'Wanderers like you have no appreciation of familiarity,' the sticksnare sniffed.

The dark mass of the Thrall blotted the skyline directly ahead. Faint torchlight from the square before the main gate cast the structure's angled stones in dulled relief. As they entered an avenue that led to the concourse they came upon the first knot of Barghast, surrounding a small fire built from broken furniture. Tarps slung between the buildings down the avenue's length made the passage beyond a kind of tunnel, strikingly similar to market streets in Seven Cities. Figures lay sleeping along the edges down the entire length. Various cookfires painted smoke-stained, mottled patterns of light on the undersides of the tarps. A good many Barghast warriors remained awake, watchful.

'Try wending unseen through that press, Wizard,' Talamandas murmured. 'We'll have to go round, assuming you still cling to your bizarre desire to slink like a mouse in a hut full of cats. In case you've forgotten, those are my kin-'

'Be quiet,' Quick Ben commanded under his breath. 'Consider this another test of our partnership — and the warrens.'

'We're going straight through?'

'We are.'

'Which warren? Not D'riss again, please — these cobbles-'

'No no, we'd end up soaked in old blood. We won't go under, Talamandas. We'll go over. Serc, the Path of the Sky.'

'Thought you'd exhausted yourself back at the estate.'

'I have. Mostly. We could sweat a bit on this one.'

'I don't sweat.'

'Let's test that, shall we?' The wizard unveiled the warren of Serc. Little alteration was discernible in the scene around them. Then, slowly, as Quick Ben's eyes adjusted, he detected currents in the air, the layers of cold and warm flowing parallel to the ground, the spirals coiling skyward from between the tarps, the wake of passing figures, the heat-memory of stone and wood.

'Looks sickly,' the sticksnare muttered. 'You would swim those currents?'

'Why not? We're almost as insubstantial as the air we see before us. I can get us started, but the problem then is keeping me afloat. You're right — I've no reserves left. So, it's up to you, Talamandas.'

'Me? I know nothing of Serc'

'I'm not asking you to learn, either. What I want is your power.'

'That wasn't part of the deal!'

'It is now.'

The sticksnare shifted and twitched on Quick Ben's shoulder. 'By drawing on my power, you weaken the protection I offer against the poison.'

'And we need to find that threshold, Talamandas. I need to know what I can pull from you in an emergency.'

'Just how nasty a situation are you anticipating when we finally challenge the Crippled God?' the sticksnare demanded. 'Those secret plans of yours — no wonder you're keeping them secret!'

'I could have sworn you said you were offering yourself up as a sacrifice to the cause — do you now balk?'

'At madness? Count on it, Wizard!'

Quick Ben smiled to himself. 'Relax, I'm not stoking a pyre for you. Nor have I any plans to challenge the Crippled God. Not directly. I've been face to face with him once, and once remains enough. Even so, I was serious about finding that threshold. Now, pull the cork, shaman, and let's see what we can manage.'

Hissing with fury, Talamandas growled reluctant assent.

Quick Ben rose from the ground, slipped forward on the nearest current sweeping down the length of the street. The flow was cool, dipping down beneath the tarps. A moment before reaching the downdraught, the wizard nudged himself upward, into a spiral of heat from one of the fires. They shot straight up.

'Dammit!' Quick Ben snapped as he spun and cavorted on the column of heat. Gritting his teeth, the wizard reached for the sticksnare's power — and found what he had suspected to be the truth all along.

Hood's. Through and through. Of the Barghast gods, barely a drop of salty piss. The damned newcomers are stretched far too thin. Wonder what's drawing on their energies? There's a card in the Deck, in the House of Death, that's been a role unfilled for a long, long time. The Magi. I think it's just found a face — one painted on a stupid acorn. Talamandas, you may have made a terrible mistake. And as for you, Barghast gods, here's some wisdom to heed in the future. Never hand your servants over to another god, because they're not likely to stay your servants for long. Instead, that god's likely to turn them into weapons. aimed directly at your backs.