A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

narrowed eyes held disbelief, awe, and more than a little fear. Yet Kalam himself had changed. He'd not travelled far from the land he called home, yet an entire world had passed beneath him.
    Raraku had taken them all.
    Up a steep, rocky channel, through an eroded fissure, the limestone walls stained and pitted, and out into a natural amphitheatre, and there, seated cross-legged on a boulder on the clearing's opposite side, waited the last mage.
    He wore little more than rags, was emaciated, his dark skin cracked and peeling, his eyes glittering hard and brittle as obsidian.
    Kalam's reining in looked to be a tortured effort. He managed to turn his horse round, met Whiskeyjack's eyes. 'Adaephon Delat, a mage of Meanas,' he said in a bone-dry rasp, his split lips twisting into a grin. 'He was never much, sir. I doubt he'll be able to muster a defence.'
    Whiskeyjack said nothing. He angled his mount past the assassin, approached the wizard.
    'One question,' the wizard asked, his voice barely a whisper yet carrying clearly across the amphitheatre.
    'What?'
    'Who in Hood's name are you?'
    Whiskeyjack raised a brow. 'Does it matter?'
    'We have crossed Raraku entire,' the wizard said. 'Other side of these cliffs is the trail leading down to G'danisban. You chased me across the Holy Desert. . . gods, no man is worth that. Not even me!'
    'There were eleven others in your company, wizard.'
    Adaephon Delat shrugged. 'I was the youngest – the healthiest – by far. Yet now, finally, even my body has given up. I can go no further.' His dark eyes reached past Whiskeyjack. 'Commander, your soldiers . . .'
    'What of them?'
    'They are more . . . and less. No longer what they once were. Raraku, sir, has burned the bridges of their pasts, one and all – it's all gone.' He met Whiskeyjack's eyes in wonder. 'And they are yours. Heart and soul. They are yours.'
    'More than you realize,' Whiskeyjack said. He raised his voice. 'Hedge, Fiddler, are we in place?'
    'Aye!' two voices chorused.
    Whiskeyjack saw the wizard's sudden tension. After a moment, the commander twisted in his saddle. Kalam sat stiffly on his horse a dozen paces back, sweat streaming down his brow. Flanking him and slightly behind were Fiddler and Hedge, both with their crossbows trained on the assassin. Smiling, Whiskeyjack faced Adaephon Delat once again.
    'You two have played an extraordinary game. Fiddler sniffed out the secret communications – the scuffed stone-faces, the postures of the bodies, the curled fingers – one, three, two, whatever was needed to complete the cipher – we could have cut this to a close a week past, but by then I'd grown . . . curious. Eleven mages. Once the first one revealed her arcane knowledge to you – knowledge she was unable to use – it was just a matter of bargaining. What choice did the others possess? Death by Raraku's hand, or mine. Or ... a kind of salvation. But was it, after all? Do their souls clamour within you, now, Adaephon Delat? Screaming to escape their new prison? But I am left wondering, none the less. This game – you and Kalam – to what end?'
    The illusion of deprivation slowly faded from the wizard, revealing a fit, hale young man. He managed a strained smile. 'The clamour has . . . subsided somewhat. Even the ghost of a life is better than Hood's embrace, Commander. We've achieved a . . . balance, you could say.'
    And you a host of powers unimagined.'
    'Formidable, granted, but I've no desire to use them now. The game we played, Whiskeyjack? Only one of survival. At first. We didn't think you'd make it, to be perfectly honest. We thought Raraku would come to claim you – I suppose she did, in a way, though not in a way I would have anticipated. What you and your soldiers have become . . .' He shook his head.
    'What we have become,' Whiskeyjack said, 'you have shared. You and Kalam.'
    The wizard slowly nodded. 'Hence this fateful meeting. Sir, Kalam and I, we'll follow you, now. If you would have us.'
    Whiskeyjack grunted. 'The Emperor will take you from me.'
    'Only if you tell him, Commander.'
    'And Kalam?' Whiskeyjack glanced back at the assassin.
    'The Claw will be . . . displeased,' the man rumbled. Then he smiled. 'Too bad for Surly.'
    Grimacing, Whiskeyjack twisted further to survey his soldiers. The array of faces could have been carved from stone. A company, culled from the army's cast-offs, now a bright, hard core. 'Gods,' he whispered under his breath, 'what have we made here?'
    The first