* * *
Kital E'sh Oll, newly initiated as full Claw under Commander Urs, straightened from the mummified corpse to scan the layered rock walls of the surrounding canyon here in the Imperial Warren. It seemed eerie to him, the way the smoothly sculpted stone resembled water frozen in mid-fall. How could this be the work of wind alone? Yet things did not always work the same from Realm to Realm.
The remains at his feet were not that old. A few months at most. Scavengers had disturbed the site obscuring any hint of the means of death – and just what those scavengers might be, here in the seemingly lifeless Imperial Warren, was yet another mystery of this place likely never to be solved.
Whoever this had been in life, all indications were that he had been a Malazan Claw. Yet another vital message, and messenger, lost. Kital examined the surrounding dust-laden rock. Who was intercepting Imperial traffic? One of the unknown local denizens? Hood knew they were legion – demons, revenants, spirits lingering from the Warren's cursed past. Yet all these threats were nothing new. Everyone agreed the Warren was haunted. No one walked its paths for longer than absolutely necessary. Why should it suddenly have become so much more perilous?
A faint scratching brought his attention around. A man – or what appeared to be a man – now crouched on a ledge of rock behind. Dust-hued rags of what might have once been rich clothes hung from him and his hair was a tangled white matting. Kital drew his long-knives. ‘You are … ?’ The man stood – tallish, Kital noted, with a good reach, though emaciated.
‘Surprised,’ the stranger answered alike in Talian.
‘Surprised? How so?’ Kital glanced about for any others. The man's bearing was unnerving; could he really be alone?
The stranger jumped down, bringing himself almost within striking range. ‘That you keep coming.’
Despite himself, Kital gave ground to the apparition. Rumours of the Warren's hidden past whispered in his ears. Who, or what, was this? What was it talking about? Coming? ‘What do you mean?’
The figure looked down at the half-buried corpse now at his sandalled feet. ‘I mean when will that toad you call your master ever learn.’
‘Toad? I serve the Empress!’
‘So you think, lad. So you think.’ He stretched out his arms. ‘Come. I am unarmed. I will make it quick.’
Kital took in the long thin limbs, the dusky hue of the man's skin beneath the ash-laden dust. Stories whispered beneath breaths in the Claw training halls and dormitories stirred in his memories. ‘Who are you?’
The man assumed a ready stance, hands open. ‘Good question. I have been many men. I was one for some time, then another, and then another, though that last one was a lie. Now, out here for so long alone, I have begun to wonder myself … and I have decided to become the man I could have been and to test myself against the only one who is my peer. That is my goal. For the meantime, I have no name.’
Kital stared. Deranged. The fellow was completely deranged. But then, becoming lost here in the Imperial Warren would do that to anyone.
‘You should have attacked me by now, young initiate. While I so obligingly talked.’
‘My mission is to gather intelligence.’
The madman hung his head for a moment. ‘I understand. You are following your protocols. Well done, Initiate. Well done. A pity.’ He exhaled a long slow breath. ‘You would have been a great asset to the ranks. Now I regret what I must do—’
The man sprang upon him. Parrying, Kital yielded ground. The fool was unarmed! Yet every cut and strike Kital directed at him touched no skin. Knuckles struck his elbow and a long-knife flew from numbed fingers. A blow to his head disoriented him then pain erupted at his chest as his breath was driven from him as if he'd been kicked by a horse. He lay staring up at the dull, slate-hued sky, unable to inhale, his chest aflame. The stranger's face occluded the sky.
‘I am sorry,’ Kital heard him say through the roaring in his ears.
The face so close – those eyes! – Kital guessed the name and mouthed it. The man nodded, placed his hands on either side of Kital's head, hands so warm, and twisted.
Alone once more, flanked by corpses, one fresh, one old, the man straightened. He stood for a time, head cocked, listening, perhaps only to the dreary wind. The shifting of dry soil brought his attention to the older of the two bodies. That corpse's ravaged fingers of tattered sinew and bone now spasmed in the dust. The man edged away, his hands at his sides twitching. The bare broken ribs rose. Air whistled into the cadaver's torn cavities. It lurched up, its desiccated skin creaking like the leather it had become. Gaping eye sockets regarded the man.
Uncertain whether to leap on the body or away, the man offered, warily, ‘Whom am I addressing?’
‘Not the prior occupant.’
‘Hood's messenger, then?’
A laugh no more than air whistling. ‘A message. But not from him.’
‘Who then?’
The corpse jerked its arms, which swung loose from frayed ligaments. ‘Look closely, fool in rags.. You see the inevitable. Flesh imperfect. The spirit failing. All is for naught.’ Again the whistling laugh. ‘Come, you are not one to delude yourself like the rest of the common herd. Why pretend? Everything human is flawed and preordained to failure.’
Grimacing his disgust, the man eased his stance. ‘As you can see, my limbs are all whole. You're wasting your time.’
A chuckle dry as ashes. ‘Now you are deluding yourself. Or attempting to deceive me. Surely you above all are aware of the unimportance – the plain cultivated artifice — of all outward appearances.’
The man eyed the ridges above for movement. Was he being delayed? Were agents on the way? What lay behind the Chained One's contact, here, now?
‘I assure you we are quite alone. We have all the time in the world to discuss our mutual interests.’
He regarded the cadaver. ‘You can assure that – here?’
A convulsive laugh raised a cloud of dust from the body. ‘Oh, yes. Most surely. Through the influence of one of my representatives. Which brings me to my point. You, sir, are most qualified to join my House. If the positions as currently revealed do not interest you, then perhaps a new one could be forged. A new card called into creation for you and you alone. Imagine that. Is that not a singular achievement?’
‘It's been done.’
Stillness from the corpse, which the man interpreted as icy irritation. ‘Do not be so impetuous. It ill befits you. Come. Be reasonable. Surely you do not imagine you will survive the forces now arraying themselves against the Throne – and more. Do not throw yourself away needlessly.’
‘Tell me more of these forces.’
A gnawed digit reduced to one knuckle rose to shake a negative. ‘Now, now. We have not yet struck a bargain. Nor does it appear we shall.’ The arm fell and the carious grin widened. ‘A pity. For while you refuse to see wisdom, I've no doubt he shall …’ The corpse laughed its desiccated heaving whistle and with a snarl the man kicked it down. It fell clattering into pieces as the presence animating it withdrew.
The figure in rags stood for a time, silent, listening to that anaemic wind. No, he decided. No one would rob him of his satisfaction – not even the Chained One himself. But he would be no more likely to accept either, would he? No, he knew him too well. They were too much alike. Neither would accept any diversion until the final deed was done, the final knife driven home. And the beauty of all this waiting was that eventually, ultimately, the bastard Cowl would have to come to him.