The boy suddenly threw back his head, words coming from his throat like the grinding of stones. 'Two fountains of raging blood! Face to face. The blood is the same, the two are the same and salty waves shall wash the shores of Raraku. The Holy Desert remembers its past!'
The female apparition vanished. The boy toppled forward, thumping stiff as a board onto the sand. The Semk seer crouched down, resting a hand on the boy's head. 'He is returned to his family,' the old shaman said in the silence of the circle. 'The mercy of Dryjhna, the rarest of gifts, granted to this child.'
Hardened tribesmen began weeping, others falling to their knees. Shaken, Duiker pulled back as the ring slowly contracted. He blinked sweat from his eyes, sensing that someone was watching him. He looked around. Across from him stood a figure shrouded in black hides, a goat's-head hood pulled up, leaving the face in shadow. A moment later the figure looked away. Duiker quickly moved from the stranger's line of sight.
He made for the tent flap.
Seven Cities was an ancient civilization, steeped in the power of antiquity, where Ascendants once walked on every trader track, every footpath, every lost road between forgotten places. It was said the sands hoarded power within their susurrating currents, that every stone had soaked up sorcery like blood, and that beneath every city lay the ruins of countless other cities, older cities, cities that went back to the First Empire itself. It was said each city rose on the backs of ghosts, the substance of spirits thick like layers of crushed bone; that each city forever wept beneath the streets, forever laughed, shouted, hawked wares and bartered and prayed and drew first breaths that brought life and the last breaths that announced death. Beneath the streets there were dreams, wisdom, foolishness, fears, rage, grief, lust and love and bitter hatred.
The historian stepped outside into the rain, drawing in lungfuls of clean, cool air as he once more wrapped cloak about him.
Conquerors could overrun a city's walls, could kill every living soul within it, fill every estate and every house and every store with its own people, yet rule nothing but the city's thin surface, the skin of the present, and would one day be brought down by the spirits below, until they themselves were but one momentary layer among many. This is an enemy we can never defeat, Duiker believed. Yet history tells the stories of those who would challenge that enemy, again and again. Perhaps victory is not achieved by overcoming that enemy, but by joining it, becoming one with it.
The Empress has sent a new Fist to batter down the restless centuries of this land. Had she abandoned Coltaine as I'd suggested to Mallick Rel? Or had she just held him back in readiness, like a weapon forged and honed for one specific task?
Duiker left the encampment, once more hunched beneath the driving rain. Ahead loomed the gates of the Imperial Compound. He might well find some answers to his questions within the next hour, as he came face to face with Coltaine of the Crow Clan.
He crossed the rutted track, sloshing through the murky puddles filling the horse and wagon ruts, then ascended the muddy slope towards the gatehouse.
Two cowled guards stepped into view as he reached the gate's narrow side passage.
'No petitions today, Dosii,' one of the Malazan soldiers said. 'Try tomorrow.'
Duiker unclasped the cloak, opened it to reveal the Imperial diadem pinned to his tunic. 'The Fist has called a council, has he not?'
Both soldiers saluted and stepped back. The one who'd spoken earlier smiled apologetically. 'Didn't know you were with the other one,' he said.
'What other one?'
'He came in just a few minutes ago, historian.'
'Yes, of course.' Duiker nodded to the two men, then passed within. The stone floor of the passage bore the muddy tracks of a pair of moccasins. Frowning, he continued on, coming to the inside compound. A roofed causeway followed the wall to his left, leading eventually to the side postern of the squat, unimaginative headquarters building. Already wet, Duiker ignored it, electing to cross the compound directly towards the building's main entrance. In passing he noticed that the man who had preceded him had done the same. The pooled prints of his steps betrayed a bowlegged gait. The historian's frown deepened.
He came to the entrance, where another guard appeared, who directed Duiker to the council room. As he approached the room's double doors, he checked for his predecessor's footprints, but there were none. Evidently he'd gone to some other chamber within the building. Shrugging, Duiker opened the doors.
The council room was low-ceilinged, its stone walls unplastered but washed in white paint. A long marble table dominated, looking strangely incomplete in the absence of chairs. Already present were Mallick Rel, Kulp, Coltaine and another Wickan officer. They all turned at the historian's entrance, Rel's brows lifting in mild surprise. Clearly, he'd been unaware that Coltaine had extended to Duiker an invitation. Had it been the new Fist's intention to unbalance the priest, a deliberate exclusion? After a moment the historian dismissed the thought. More likely the result of a disorganized new command.
The chairs had been specifically removed for this council, as was evident in the tracks their legs had left through the white dust on the floor. The discomfort of not knowing where to stand or how to position oneself was evident in both Mallick Rel and Kulp. The Jhistal priest of Mael was shifting weight from one foot to the other, sweat on his brow reflecting the harsh glare of the lanterns set on the tabletop, his hands folded into his sleeves. Kulp looked in need of a wall to lean against, but was clearly uncertain how the Wickans would view such a casual posture.
Inwardly smiling, Duiker removed his dripping cloak, hanging it from an old torch bracket beside the doors. He then turned about and presented himself before the new Fist, who stood at the nearest end of the table, his officer on his left — a scowling veteran whose wide, flat face seemed to fold in on itself diagonally in a scar from right jawline to left brow.
'I am Duiker,' the historian said. 'Imperial Historian of the Empire.' He half bowed. 'Welcome to Hissar, Fist.' Up close, he could see that the warleader of the Crow Clan showed the weathering of forty years on the north Wickan Plains of Quon Tali. His lean, expressionless face was lined, deep brackets around the thin, wide mouth, and squint tracks at the corners of his dark, deep-set eyes. Oiled braids hung down past his shoulders, knotted with crow-feather fetishes. He was tall, wearing a battered vest of chain over a hide shirt, a crow-feather cloak hanging from his broad shoulders down to the backs of his knees. He wore a rider's leggings, laced with gut up the outer sides to his hips. A single horn-handled long-knife jutted out from under his left arm.
In answer to Duiker's words he cocked his head. 'When I last saw you,' he said in his harsh Wickan accent, 'you lay in fever on the Emperor's own cot, about to rise and walk through the Hooded One's Gates.' He paused. 'Bult was the young warrior whose lance ripped you open and for his effort a soldier named Dujek kissed Bult's face with his sword.' Coltaine slowly turned to smile at the scarred Wickan at his side.
The grizzled horseman's scowl remained unchanged as he glared at Duiker. After a moment he shook his head and swelled his chest. 'I remember an unarmed man. The lack of weapons in his hands turned my lance at the last moment. I remember Dujek's sword that stole my beauty even as my horse bit his arm crushing bone. I remember that Dujek lost that arm to the surgeons, fouled as it was with my horse's breath. Between us, I lost the exchange, for the loss of an arm did nothing to damage Dujek's glorious career, while the loss of my beauty left me with but the one wife that I already had.'
'And was she not your sister, Bult?'
'She was, Coltaine. And blind.'