A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

But I am no mere girl any more.'
    Her father's sigh was loud. 'Daughter,' he rumbled, 'we ain't none of us what we once were, and there ain't nothing simple in what we've gone through to get here.' He scowled, as if struggling for words. 'But you ordered the High Priest to shut up, to protect secrets that Dancer – Cotillion – would want kept that way. So Icarium's suspicions were natural enough.'
    'Yes,' she countered, 'I am not a slave to what I was. I decide what to do with the knowledge I possess. I choose my own causes, Father.'
    Icarium spoke. 'I stand chastised, Apsalar.' He faced Mappo again. 'What more do you know of these Nameless Ones, friend?'
    Mappo hesitated, then said, 'Our tribe welcomed them as guests, but their visits were rare. I believe, however, that indeed they view themselves as servants of the Azath. If Trell legends hold any truth, then the cult may well date from the time of the First Empire—'
    'They have been eradicated!' Iskaral shrieked.
    'Within the borders of the Malazan Empire, perhaps,' Mappo conceded.
    'My friend,' Icarium said, 'you are withholding truths. I would hear them.'
    The Trell sighed. 'They have taken it upon themselves to recruit your guardians, Icarium, and have done so since the beginning.'
    'Why?'
    'That I do not know. Now that you ask it—' He frowned. 'An interesting question. Dedication to noble vows? Protection of the Azath?' Mappo shrugged.
    'Hood's stubby ankles!' Rellock growled. 'Might be guilt, for all we know.'
    All eyes swung to him.
    After a long, silent moment, Fiddler shook himself. 'Come on, then. Into the maze.'
     
    Arms and limbs. What clawed at the binding roots, what stretched and twisted in a hopeless effort to pull free, what reached out in supplication, in silent appeal and in deadly offer from all sides, was an array of imprisoned life, and few among those horridly animate projections were human in origin.
    Fiddler's imagination failed his compulsive desire to fashion likely bodies, heads and faces to such limbs, even as he knew that the reality of what lay hidden within the woven walls would pale his worst nightmares.
    Tremorlor's gnarled gaol of roots held demons, ancient Ascendants and such a host of alien creatures that the sapper was left trembling in the realization of his insignificance and that of all his kind. Humans were but one tiny, frail leaf on a tree too massive even to comprehend. The shock of that unmanned him, mocking his audacity with an endless echo of ages and realms trapped within this mad, riotous prison.
    They could hear battles raging on all sides, thus far mercifully in other branches of the tortured maze. The Azath was being assailed from all fronts. The sound of snapping, shattering wood cracked through the air. Bestial screams rent the iron-smeared air above them, voices lost from the throats that released them, voices the only thing that could escape this terrifying war.
    The crossbow's stock was slick with sweat in Fiddler's hands as he edged forward, keeping to the centre of the path, beyond the reach of those grasping, unhuman hands. A sharp bend lay just ahead. The sapper crouched down, then glanced back at the others.
    Only three Hounds remained. Shan and Gear had set off, taking divergent paths. Where they were now and what was happening to them Fiddler had no idea, but Baran, Blind and Rood did not seem perturbed at their absence. The sightless female padded at Icarium's side as if she was nothing more than a well-trained companion to the Jhag. Baran held back as rearguard, while Rood – pale, mottled, a solid mass of muscle – waited not five paces from Fiddler's position, motionless. Its eyes, a dark liquid brown, seemed fixed on the sapper.
    He shivered, his gaze flicking once again to Blind. At Icarium's side . . . so dose ... He understood that proximity all too clearly, as did Mappo. If bargains could be struck with a House of the Azath, then Shadowthrone had managed it. The Hounds would not be taken – as much as Tremorlor would have yearned for such prizes, for the abrupt and absolute removal of these ancient killers – no, the deal involved a much greater prize ...
    Mappo stood on the Jhag's other side, the burnished long-bone club raised before him. A surge of compassion flooded Fiddler. The Trell was being torn apart from within. He had more than just shapeshifters to guard against – there was, after all, the companion he loved as a brother.
    Crokus and Apsalar, the former with his