* * *
The grit of pulverized rock crackled beneath Silverfox’s sandalled feet as she walked the subterranean chamber. With her toes she edged aside shattered wood from a chair to approach a sprawled corpse. A woman. Sliced through by the clean unmistakable cut of an Imass stone weapon. Nothing sharper, she thought, feeling very distant from it all. Even in this day and age, after all these centuries.
Her minders, Pran and Tolb, hovered nearby, she was certain, though she couldn’t see them at the moment. Prudent, that, given what she felt rising up within her.
She thought she’d managed to contain it all. Tamp it down, choke it off. She’d told herself she could live with all this killing. This murder. Now her numbness scared her. A new worry clawed at her stomach – was she becoming what she despised?
Oblivion would be preferable.
Yet … the dread within her whispered: what if not even oblivion is for you?
She raised her gaze to the stone ceiling where colossal wild magics had gouged and scarred the root rock. She blinked to clear her vision. The stink of rotting flesh assaulted her nostrils and raised acid in her throat.
I deserve this reek. I should live with it always. A reminder—
No. I should not need reminding. That I would ever need reminding is … unforgivable.
Grit crackled again as she made her way to the next corpse: an elderly man thrust through numerous times. Strong in his Jaghut blood, this one – he appeared to have ignored several mortal wounds to continue fighting – yet without the obvious strong markers of his heritage, the pronounced jaws and tusk-like teeth, the height. Without those. So did communities change over time. Look at the diversity of the peoples she knew – all from a common ancestor.
Ancestors she walked with now, who yet appeared far from her blood with their thick robust bones, their squat build and wide jaws.
Flies swarmed the dark holes that once held this one’s eyes. She was grateful that she did not have to meet his gaze, even a fixed death stare. She suspected it would be too much. She felt she was on a knife’s edge of … shattering. The faintest, most innocuous sound might send her tumbling over that edge to where she could never find herself again.
She’d driven her flesh beyond exhaustion, beyond what it should be expected to endure. Yet that was as nothing to the agony her soul had inflicted upon itself. Could a person choke on self-loathing? She felt she was as much a walking corpse as her companions.
Quick light steps across the littered floor swung her about: she caught a glimpse of a slip of a girl, her glaring eyes bright and wild in the gloom, her shirt and long skirting tattered and scorched, before the child launched herself upon her. Instinctively, Silverfox caught her arms and they rocked there, straining, limbs outstretched.
No reason remained in the hatred and rage pouring from the wide eyes. The broken nails of the clawed fingers stretched for her. Protect yourself! the voice of Tattersail shouted within. Destroy her! the Thelomen bellowed.
Yet Silverfox did not raise the powers of the magery at her command. Instead, she fought to catch those rolling eyes and said, her voice cracking: ‘Why?’
Perhaps it was the strangeness of being addressed – or the strangeness of the question itself – but she felt the girl’s arms ease. The mouth, working and twisted, fell into a frown of disbelief.
‘Why …?’ the girl repeated as if testing the word. ‘Why?’ She pulled away, clasped her hands behind her back as if to restrain them there. ‘You dare ask why? You, who slew my family?’
What could she say? The time for ‘Sorry’ was long past. Ten thousand years past. No, the gulf was too profoundly deep to be bridged by any such gesture. ‘What I mean,’ she said, ‘is why must we kill each other?’
The girl fairly quivered in the grip of emotions no doubt as profound as those afflicting Silverfox herself. Blood-smeared and ragged, she looked like a lost waif. Silverfox had to resist the urge to reach out in an effort to soothe her.
‘You attacked us!’ the girl accused.
‘And who are we?’
‘You are the enemy we thought would never come. A legend. Stories to scare children. The Army of Dust and Bone.’
So that may be the legacy of the Imass, Silverfox mused. A legend. A frightening threat from the dark night of the past. Even that, she decided, would be eminently preferable. She cleared her throat to speak as she could hardly force out the words. ‘Well … it is over. No one will threaten you now. You are in no danger.’
The girl’s frown eased, though she remained wary, her brows clenched in worry. Then she seemed to come to a decision and her mouth twitched upwards in something like a strained mask-like smile. ‘In that case—’ she began, then jerked, her eyes bulging.
The point of a brown flint sword punched through the front of her chest. Yet her eyes held Silverfox’s. As they dimmed, it seemed to the Summoner that they poured forth a child’s hurt at a profound betrayal, and this grief broke Silverfox’s heart. The girl slid off the blade revealing Pran Chole behind. Silverfox stared her horror at the Imass, whispered, ‘What have you done?’
‘Summoner … she was—’
Silverfox threw up a hand to command his silence; the presence of Tattersail, the old Malazan mage, was now choking her in its outrage. ‘Answer this crime!’ the ghost-presence of the woman demanded.
But no. No more retaliation. She was done with it. Done with them all. The raised hand now waved dismissal, but it was she who staggered off, lurching, almost blind. She wondered why tears would not come. Am I that hardened now? Instead, anger possessed her: a heated sizzling rage. To think they once held her pity! Chained to a ritual sworn ages ago! Unbending. Immovable. Intractable! They will not change.
Suddenly, it was clear what she had to do. If they were incapable of change, then it was up to her to force it upon them. She was, after all, the Summoner.
The entrance was a half-choked glare of light. She kicked her way through the rubble towards it. Her hand was still extended out behind her, daring anyone to follow.
In the darkness behind, broken rock crackled once more as Tolb Bell’al joined Pran Chole. The latter extended his withered foot in its tattered leather remnants to press open the hands of the dead girl. A thin knife blade clattered to the stones, its edge dark with venom.
The two exchanged a silent glance.
‘Shall we ever convince her of it?’ Tolb asked.
Pran shook his head, the leather of his neck creaking. ‘Best not to bring it up again, I think.’
Tolb nodded his agreement. ‘Perhaps so.’
Silverfox exited the stone portal like a swimmer broaching the surface after a too-long dive. She gasped for breath, lurching, grasping at the wall for support. The waiting ranks of the Ifayle and Kron flinched from her as they sensed her rage. She stormed off, up a grass-thatched dune, to a single figure standing alone, her long black hair whipping in the wind.
‘I am done with them,’ Silverfox announced, coming abreast of Kilava.
The ancient Bonecaster crossed her arms. ‘Strange how all those who meet the T’lan Imass eventually come to that conclusion. Those who survive, in any case.’
But Silverfox could not share the woman’s detachment. ‘Tell them to keep their distance. I will go on alone in this. Meet Lanas on my own.’ She paused. ‘That is, unless you wish to witness?’
Kilava pushed her hair from her wide face, the broad cheekbones and thick, almost brutal brow ridge. ‘I would witness.’