A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

of the trees on our barrows? No, you do not. Indeed they hold the soul, keep it from wandering, but why ?
    'We came to this land from the seas, plying the vast waters in dugouts – the world was young, then, our blood thick with the secret truths of our past. Look upon the faces of the Barghast, mortal – no, look upon a Barghast skull stripped of skin and muscle ...'
    'I've seen ... Barghast skulls,' Quick Ben said slowly.
    'Ah, and have you seen their like ... animate ?'
    The wizard scowled. 'No, but something similar, squatter – the features slightly more pronounced—'
    'Slightly, aye, slightly. Squatter? No surprise, we never went hungry, for the sea provided. Yet more, Tartheno Toblakai were among us ...'
    'You were T'lan Imass! Hood's breath! Then ... you and your kin must have defied the Ritual—'
    'Defied? No. We simply failed to arrive in time – our pursuit of the Jaghut had forced us to venture onto the seas, to dwell among iceflows and on treeless islands. And in our isolation from kin, among the elder peoples – the Tartheno – we changed ... when our distant kin did not. Mortal,
wherever land proved generous enough to grant us a birth,
we buried our dugouts – for ever. From this was born the custom of the trees on our barrows – though none among my kind remembers. It has been so long ...'
    'Tell me your tale, Talamandas. But first, answer me this. What would you do ... if I freed you of these bindings?'
    'You cannot.'
    'Not an answer.'
    'Very well, though it be pointless. I would seek to set free the First Families – aye, we are spirits, and now worshipped by the living clans. But the ancient bindings have kept us as children in so many ways. Well meant, yet a curse none the less. We must be freed. To grow into true power—'
    'To ascend into true gods,' Quick Ben whispered, his eyes wide as he stared down at the ragged figure of grasses and twigs.
    'The Barghast refuse to change, the living think now as the living always did. Generation after generation. Our kind are dying out, mortal. We rot from within. For the ancestors are prevented from giving true guidance, prevented from maturing into their power – our power. To answer your question, mortal, I would save the living Barghast, if I could.'
    'Tell me, Talamandas,' Quick Ben asked with veiled eyes, 'is survival a right, or a privilege?'
    'The latter, mortal. The latter. And it must be earned. I wish for the chance. For all my people, I wish for the chance.'
    The wizard slowly nodded. 'A worthy wish, Old One.' He held out his hand, palm up, stared down at it. 'There's salt in this clay, is there not? I smell it. Clay is usually airless, lifeless. Defiant of the tireless servants of the soil. But the salt, well. . .' A writhing clump took shape on Quick Ben's palm. 'Sometimes,' he went on, 'the simplest of creatures can defeat the mightiest sorceries, in the simplest way imaginable.' The worms – red like blood, thin, long and ridged with leg-like cilia along their lengths – twisted and heaved, fell in clumps to the glyph-strewn ground. 'These are native to a distant continent. They feed on salt, or so it seems – the mines on the dry sea beds of Setta are thick with these things, especially in the dry season. They can turn the hardest pan of clay into sand. To put it another way, they bring air to the airless.' He dropped the clump onto the ground, watched as the worms spread out, began burrowing. 'And they breed faster than maggots. Ah, see those glyphs – there, on the edges? Their binding's crumbling – can you feel the loosening?'
    'Mortal, who are you?'
    'In the eyes of the gods, Talamandas? Just a lowly salt-worm. I'll hear your tale now, Old One . . .'

CHAPTER NINE
    On the subcontinent of Stratem, beyond Korelri's south range, can be found a vast peninsula where even the gods do not tread. Reaching to each coast, encompassing an area of thousands of square leagues, stretches a vast plaza. Aye, dear readers, there is no other word for it. Fashion this in your mind: near-seamless flagstones, unmarred by age and of grey, almost black, stone. Rippled lines of dark dust, minuscule dunes heaped by the moaning winds, these are all that break the breathless monotony. Who laid such stones?
    Should we give credence to Gothos's hoary tome, his glorious 'Folly'? Should we attach a dread name to the makers of this plaza? If we must, then that name is K'Chain Che'Malle. Who, then, were the K'Chain Che'Malle? An Elder Race, or so