A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

Widdershins.
Corabb could have kept up had he been alone back here,
but he would not leave the Malazan sergeant behind.
Enemy or no, such things were not done.
    He had believed them all monsters, cowards and bullies.
He had heard that they ate their own dead. But no, they
were just people. No different from Corabb himself. The
tyranny lies at the feet of the Empress. These – they're all just
soldiers. That's all they are. Had he gone with Leoman... he
would have discovered none of this. He would have held
onto his fierce hatred for all Malazans and all things
Malazan.
    But now ... the man behind him was dying. A Falari
by birth – just another place conquered by the empire.
Dying, and there was no room to get to him, not here,
not yet.
    'Here,' he said to Widdershins. 'Pass this up.'
    'Hood take us, that's real rope!'
    'Aye. Move it along fast now.'
    'Don't order me around, bastard. You're a prisoner.
Remember that.'
    Corabb crawled back.
    The heat was building, devouring the thin streams of
cool air sliding up from below. They couldn't lie still for
much longer. We must move on. From Strings: 'Did you say something, Corabb?'
    'No. Nothing much.'
     
    From above came sounds of Cuttle making his way down
the makeshift rope, his breath harsh, strained. Bottle
reached the rubble-filled base of the fissure. It was solidly
plugged. Confused, he ran his hands along both walls. His
rat? Ah, there – at the bottom of the sheer, vertical wall his
left hand plunged into air that swept up and past. An archway.
Gods, what kind of building was this? An archway,
holding the weight of at least two – maybe three – storeys'
worth of stonework. And neither the wall nor the arch had
buckled, after all this time. Maybe the legends are true. Maybe
Y'Ghatan was once the first Holy City, the greatest city of all.
And when it died, at the Great Slaughter, every building was left
standing – not a stone taken. Standing, to be buried by the sands.
    He lowered himself to twist feet-first through the archway,
almost immediately contacting heaps of something –
rubble? – nearly filling the chamber beyond. Rubble that
tipped and tilted with clunking sounds, rocked by his
kicking feet.
    Ahead, his rat roused itself, startled by the loud sounds as
Bottle slid into the chamber. Reaching out with his will, he
grasped hold of the creature's soul once more. 'All right,
little one. The work begins again ...' His voice trailed
away.
    He was lying on row upon row of urns, stacked so high
they were an arm's reach from the chamber's ceiling.
Groping with his hands, Bottle found that the tall urns
were sealed, capped in iron, the edges and level tops of the
metal intricately incised with swirling patterns. The
ceramic beneath was smooth to the touch, finely glazed.
Hearing Cuttle shouting that he'd reached the base behind
him, he crawled in towards the centre of the room. The rat
slipped through another archway opposite, and Bottle
sensed it clambering down, alighting on a clear, level stone
floor, then waddling ahead.
    Grasping the rim of one urn's iron cap, he strained to
pull it loose. The seal was tight, his efforts eliciting
nothing. He twisted the rim to the right – nothing – then
the left. A grating sound. He twisted harder. The cap
slid, pulled loose from its seal. Crumbled wax fell away.
Bottle pulled upward on the lid. When that failed, he
resumed twisting it to the left, and quickly realized that the
lid was rising, incrementally, with every full turn. Probing
fingers discovered a canted, spiralling groove on the rim of
the urn, crusted with wax. Two more turns and the iron lid
came away.
    A pungent, cloying smell arose.
    I know that smell ... honey. These things are filled with
honey. For how long had they sat here, stored away by
people long since dust? He reached down, and almost
immediately plunged his hand into the cool, thick
contents. A balm against his burns, and now, an answer to
the sudden hunger awakening within him.
    'Bottle?'
    'Through here. I'm in a large chamber under the straight
wall. Cuttle, there's urns here, hundreds of them. Filled
with honey.' He drew his hands free and licked his fingers.
'Gods, it tastes fresh. When you get in here, salve your
burns, Cuttle—'
    'Only if you promise we're not going to crawl through an
ant nest anywhere ahead.'
    'No ants down here. What's the count?'
    'We got everybody.'
    'Strings?'
    'Still with us, though the heat's working its way down.'
    'Enough rope and straps, then.