Kiska awoke lying on a sand beach. She blinked, staring up at an empty night sky. Completely empty. Not overcast nor occluded by clouds, but clear and open yet pitch dark. A night sky utterly devoid of stars.
Strange. Was she in Kurald Galain, the Warren of Elder Night?
She sat up. Her staff lay nearby in the sand. And what strange sand… it too was black, yet as fine as any sand she’d felt. She stood. A surf broke gently against the charcoal shore. Kiska stared amazed: a sea of white light. Liquid brilliance shimmering and lapping, no different from any other sea. It extended out to a strange horizon that seemed to go on to a dizzying extent.
I’ve gone insane.
To one side a headland of rock extended out into the sea of light. Thankfully, it held a green-grey hue in contrast to the stark black and white all around. A figure was approaching from that headland, arms out, smiling beneath his moustache: Leoman.
She set her hands on her hips. ‘Where in Hood’s Realm are we?’
He gave a maddeningly unconcerned shrug. ‘Not there, I assure you.’
‘Then where?’
He raised his arms, turning full circle. ‘Welcome to what I call… the Shores of Creation.’
Something told her that the man might be right. ‘And what are we going to do here? How do we get out?’
Leoman raised a finger. ‘Ah! I was going to ask a fellow… but I’m having a hard time getting his attention.’ He gestured up high into the sky.
Kiska stared, squinting. ‘Who?’ Then movement — something enormous ponderously shifting above. A giant. And not some Toblakai or Thelomen. A titanic being the size of a mountain straddling the shore. Kiska knew that if she were next to his foot she wouldn’t even be able to see over his toe. And he, or it, was doing something: moving or carrying a huge boulder the size of a fortress…
Kiska found herself sitting once more on the sands.
Leoman was sitting next to her. He nodded. ‘Yes. I did that too.’
She sank her head into her hands. Gods! She was lost! Utterly lost! Her quest to save Tayschrenn a failure! Hadn’t the Queen of Dreams foreseen this? Why did she send her? She was… gods… she was castaway!
To her horror she felt tears burning up within her eyes and she swiped at them, furious. Beside her Leoman sighed with pleasure and lay back. He folded his arms behind his head.
She glared at him, snapping, ‘What are you so pleased about?’
He took a deep calming breath. ‘Kiska, I’ve made a lot of enemies over the course of my life…’
‘I’m sure of that,’ she muttered.
‘… and I feared I’d never be free of them all. Yet,’ and he gestured around, ‘here I am! Finally able to sleep utterly at ease. Completely free of fear! What a blessing!’ And he closed his eyes.
Kiska stared, unbelieving. Now she knew it was worse. It wasn’t that she was castaway. It was that she wasn’t alone. She was with him. This useless, lazy, unmotivated lump.
She pushed herself up. ‘Well I’m not content to do nothing here. I’m going to find a way out.’
He made a noncommittal noise, his eyes closed.
Kiska stalked off. Useless shit! Why should she have to do all the work?
Behind her, lying on the sand, a smile crept up Leoman’s lips.
The Shadow priest, Warran, stood alone on a modest slope watching the Liosan army, battered but victorious, come staggering back to their camp. He saw their leader, the ferocious Tiste Liosan woman, another daughter of the Ascendant Osserc, come limping back, supporting her brother L’oric, his nose, mouth and shirt-front dark with blood.
There. Well. That’s one thing settled, at least!
He held his hand out and a short walking stick appeared. He leaned upon it. His expression was one of satisfied contemplation.
‘Aren’t you done here yet?’ someone asked next to him.
He looked to the empty sky, then glanced to one side. It was a slim man in a loose dark shirt and trousers, with a rope draped round his neck which he held in both hands. ‘It just so happens that yes, I am.’
‘Thank the Ancients — you’ve wasted enough attention here.’
‘The creeping loss of Emurlahn is not to be ignored.’ He raised a finger. ‘No one steals from me. Not even a fish.’
The other furrowed his thin brows, opened his mouth to make a comment, reconsidered. ‘Well, this was never a threat.’
‘You are too sure of yourself.’
‘My confidence has gotten us where we are.’
‘As has my wariness and paranoia!’
Each glared at the other until Warran’s slit gaze slid aside and he murmured, ‘At least I think so…’
The other began fading away. ‘We’re too busy for this…’
Warran let out a tired breath, began thinning into transparency as if wafting away into shreds of shadow. ‘But I was enjoying the unravelling of the Whorl, the desolate landscape, the useless flailing of the Liosan…’
In moments both were gone.
Kyle sat on piled cargo amidships of his contracted Katakan trader. The Isle of East Watch passed as a dark jagged hump to the south. The sun warmed him; a welcome relief from the months of bitter, unnaturally intense winter. Shading his gaze, he looked back to Kevil Horn, the southern tip of Fist.
If he ever returned it would be too soon. He was sick of all these lands and their useless, internecine warfare. Waste, that’s what it was… all a sad waste. He’d return home — if he could find it. He wasn’t exactly sure where it lay. East of Genabackis, he believed. It had been years now and what did he have to show for all his trouble? A weapon that brought him more attention that he wanted, new scars, and painful memories.
Maybe he’d look up his old friends from the Guard: Stalker and his cousins, Badlands and Coots. See what they were up to. Anything but remain here, in these lands.
They’d taken his friend. Sleep well, Greymane! You were right not to tell me, or to bring me along. I’d have stayed with you… but then, I can think of worse deaths than falling at the side of a friend. Something, it seems to me, these Korelri understand.
He reached to his neck to pull out a frayed leather strap and a small amber stone that he rubbed between thumb and forefinger. The words of that last Fistian priest returned to him: Who protects you? It is of the earth!
Could it be true? Another old fallen friend still with him? The amber stone had come from Ereko, a giant like these Toblakai and Tarthinoe — in fact he’d claimed to be of the race that was their ancestors. And he’d claimed the very earth as his mother. Perhaps he was with him in more than memory…
He released the stone to gently feel at his ravaged scalp. He had no way of knowing, but he would like to think so. In any case he was free of them all now: free of these Korelri, the Guard, and especially he was free of these damned Malazans. He’d go home where there were only the plains, the animals, and the hunt. It would be good to return to that honest, uncomplicated life.
He’d had a bellyful of war and death and great powers grinding people underfoot as they groped for advantage — it sickened him. He had nothing but contempt for it and he felt almost weightless now that he was out of their clutches.
Yes, he’d look up his friends, Stalker and his cousins. They’d come from the lands north of his birth plains. A land of mountains and forests. A land the elders of his clan named… Assail.
The crew of a fishing boat daring the rich waters south of Malaz Island was astonished when something heavy yanked on one man’s line. A crewman at the side swore he saw something bright flash beneath the boat, but when nothing more occurred they turned to the line. They were fearful, yet it was no longer the season of the Stormriders and so they warily pulled, to see a man’s body entwined in the gut. They heaved him into the boat and were even more astonished when he suddenly took a great shuddering breath and clutched at them.