He loosened his cloak. ‘Then again, this place will suit just fine.’
‘For what?’
He cast her a sardonic glance. ‘Well, dear, a ritual. We need to find a trail, a sorcerous one, and it’s old. Did you imagine we would just wander directionless through this wasteland in the hopes of finding something?’
‘Odd, I thought that was what we’ve been doing for days.’
‘Just getting some distance between us and that damned Imass head,’ he replied, walking over to a flat stretch of stone, where he began kicking it clear of rubble. ‘I could feel its unhuman eyes on us all the way across that valley.’
‘Him and the vultures, aye.’ She tilted her head back and studied the cloudless sky. ‘Still with us, in fact. Those damned birds. Not surprising. We’re almost out of water, with even less food. In a day or two we’ll be in serious trouble.’
‘I will leave such mundane worries with you, Lostara.’
‘Meaning, if all else fails, you can always kill and eat me, right? But what if I decide to kill you first? Obsessed as I am with mundane worries.’
The Claw settled down into a crosslegged position. ‘It’s become much cooler here, don’t you think? A localized phenomenon, I suspect. Although I would imagine that some measure of success in the ritual I am about to enact should warm things up somewhat.’
‘If only the excitement of disbelief,’ Lostara muttered, walking over to the edge of the tel and looking southwestward to where the red wall of the Whirlwind cut a curving slash across the desert. Behind her, she heard muted words, spoken in some language unknown to her. Probably gibberish. I’ve seen enough mages at work to know they don’t need words… not unless they’re performing. Pearl was probably doing just that. He was one for poses, even while affecting indifference to his audience of one. A man seeking his name in tomes of history. Some crucial role upon which the fate of the empire pivots.
She turned as he slapped dust from hands, and saw him rising, a troubled frown on his all-too-handsome face.
‘That didn’t take long,’ she said.
‘No.’ Even he sounded surprised. ‘I was fortunate indeed. A local earth spirit was killed… close by. By a confluence of dire fates, an incidental casualty. Its ghost lingers, like a child seeking lost parents, and so would speak to any and every stranger who happens by, provided that stranger is prepared to listen.’
Lostara grunted. ‘All right, and what did it have to say?’
‘A terrible incident-well, the terrible incident, the one that killed the spirit-the details of which lead me to conclude there is some connec-’
‘Good,’ she interrupted. ‘Lead on, we’re wasting time.’
He fell silent, giving her a wounded look that might well have been sincere. I asked the question, I should at least let him answer it.
A gesture, and he was making his way down the tel’s steep, stepped side.
She shouldered her pack and followed.
Reaching the base, the Claw led her around its flank and directly southward across a stony flat. The sunlight bounced from its bleached surface with a fierce, blinding glare. Barring a few ants scurrying underfoot, there was no sign of life on this withered stretch of ground. Small stones lay in elongated clusters here and there, as if describing the shorelines of a dying lake, a lake that had dwindled into a scatter of pools, leaving nothing but crusted salt.
They walked on through the afternoon, until a ridge of hills became visible to the southwest, with another massive mesa rising to its left. The flat began to form a discernible basin that seemed to continue on between the two formations. With dusk only moments away, they reached the even base of that descent, the mesa looming on their left, the broken hill ahead and to their right.
Towards the centre of this flat lay the wreckage of a trader’s wagon, surrounded by scorched ground where white ashes spun in small vortices that seemed incapable of going anywhere.
Pearl leading, they strode into the strange burned circle.
The ashes were filled with tiny bones, burned white and grey by some intense heat, crunching underfoot. Bemused, Lostara crouched down to study them. ‘Birds?’ she wondered aloud.
Pearl’s gaze was on the wagon or, perhaps, something just beyond it. At her question he shook his head. ‘No, lass. Rats.’
She saw a tiny skull lying at her feet, confirming his words. ‘There are rats of a sort, in the rocky areas-’
He glanced over at her. ‘These are-were-D’ivers. A particularly unpleasant individual named Gryllen.’
‘He was slain here?’
‘I don’t think so. Badly hurt, perhaps.’ Pearl walked over to a larger heap of ash, and squatted to sweep it away.
Lostara approached.
He was uncovering a corpse, nothing but bones-and those bones were all terribly gnawed.
‘Poor bastard.’
Pearl said nothing. He reached down into the collapsed skeleton and lifted into view a small chunk of metal. ‘Melted,’ he muttered after a moment, ‘but I’d say it’s a Malazan sigil. Mage cadre.’
There were four additional heaps similar to that which had hidden the chewed bones. Lostara walked to the nearest one and began kicking the ash away.
‘This one’s whole!’ she hissed, seeing fire-blackened flesh.
Pearl came over. Together, they brushed the corpse clear from the hips upward. Its clothing had been mostly burned off, and fire had raced across the skin but had seemed incapable of doing much more than scorch the surface.
As the Claw swept the last of the ash from the corpse’s face, its eyes opened.
Cursing, Lostara leapt back, one hand sweeping her sword free of its scabbard.
‘It’s all right,’ Pearl said, ‘this thing isn’t going anywhere, lass.’
Behind the corpse’s wrinkled, collapsed lids, there were only gaping pits. Its lips had peeled back with desiccation, leaving it with a ghastly, blackened grin.
‘What remains?’ Pearl asked it. ‘Can you still speak?’
Faint sounds rasped from it, forcing Pearl to lean closer.
‘What did it say?’ Lostara demanded.
The Claw glanced back at her. ‘He said, “I am named Clam, and I died a terrible death.” ’
‘No argument there-’
‘And then he became an undead porter.’
‘For Gryllen?’
‘Aye.’
She sheathed her tulwar. ‘That seems a singularly unpleasant profession following death.’
Pearl’s brows rose, then he smiled. ‘Alas, we won’t get much more from dear old Clam. Nor the others. The sorcery holding them animate fades. Meaning Gryllen is either dead or a long way away. In any case, recall the warren of fire-it was unleashed here, in a strange manner. And it left us a trail.’
‘It’s too dark, Pearl. We should camp.’
‘Here?’
She reconsidered, then scowled in the gloom. ‘Perhaps not, but none the less I am weary, and if we’re looking for signs, we’ll need daylight in any case.’
Pearl strode from the circle of ash. A gesture and a sphere of light slowly formed in the air above him. ‘The trail does not lead far, I believe. One last task, Lostara. Then we can find somewhere to camp.’
‘Oh, very well. Lead on, Pearl.’
Whatever signs he followed, they were not visible to Lostara. Even stranger, it seemed to be a weaving, wandering one, a detail that had the Claw frowning, his steps hesitant, cautious. Before too long, he was barely moving at all, edging forward by the smallest increments. And she saw that his face was beaded with sweat.
She bit back on her questions, but slowly drew her sword once more.
Then, finally, they came to another corpse.
The breath whooshed from Pearl, and he sank down to his knees in front of the large, burned body.
She waited until his breathing slowed, then cleared her throat and said, ‘What just happened, Pearl?’