A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

on with no end in sight. The three
figures had rowed their well-provisioned boat for what
passed for a day and most of a night in the Shadow Realm,
before the craft ran aground in shallows. Unable to find a
way past, they had shouldered the packs and disembarked,
wading in silty, knee-deep water. Now, midway through the
next day, they dragged exhausted, numbed legs through a
calm lake that had been no deeper than their hips since
dawn – until they reached a sudden drop-off.
    Trull Sengar had been in the lead, using his spear to
probe the waters ahead, and now he moved to one side,
step by step, the butt of the weapon stirring the grey, milky
silts along the edge. He continued on for a time, watched
by his companions. 'Doesn't feel natural,' he finally said,
making his way back to the others. 'The drop-away is
smooth, even.' Moving past Onrack and Quick Ben, he
resumed probing the ledge in the opposite direction. 'No
change here.'
    The wizard voiced a long, elaborate string of curses in his
Malazan tongue, then said, 'I could take to the air, drawing
on Serc – although how long I could manage that is anyone's
guess.' He glared across at Onrack. 'You can just melt
into silts, you damned T'lan Imass.'
    'Leaving me,' said Trull, who then shrugged. 'I will swim,
then – there may well be a resumption of the shallows
ahead – you know, we've been walking on an unnaturally
level bottom for some time. Imagine for the moment that
we are on a submerged concourse of some sort – enormous,
granted, but still. This drop-off could simply mark a canal.
In which case I should soon find the opposite side.'
    'A concourse?' Quick Ben grimaced. 'Trull, if this is a
concourse beneath us it's the size of a city-state.'
    Onrack said, 'You will find one such construct, Wizard,
covering the southeast peninsula of Stratem. K'Chain
Che'Malle. A place where ritual wars were fought – before
all ritual was abandoned.'
    'You mean when the Short-Tails rebelled.'
    Trull swore under his breath. 'I hate it when everyone
knows more than me.' Then he snorted. 'Mind you, my
company consists of a mage and an undead, so I suppose it's
no surprise I falter in comparison.'
    'Falter?' Onrack's neck creaked loud as the warrior
turned to regard the Tiste Edur. 'Trull Sengar, you are the
Knight of Shadow.'
    Quick Ben seemed to choke.
    Above the wizard's sudden fit of coughing, Trull shouted:
'I am what ? Was this Cotillion's idea? That damned
upstart—'
    'Cotillion did not choose you, friend,' Onrack said. 'I
cannot tell you who made you what you now are. Perhaps
the Eres'al, although I do not comprehend the nature of her
claim within the realm of Shadow. One thing, however, is
very clear – she has taken an interest in you, Trull Sengar.
    Even so, I do not believe the Eres'al was responsible. I
believe you yourself were.'
    'How? What did I do?'
    The T'lan Imass slowly tilted its head to one side.
'Warrior, you stood before Icarium. You held the Lifestealer.
You did what no warrior has ever done.'
    'Absurd,' snapped Trull. 'I was finished. If not for Quick
Ben here – and the Eres'al – I'd be dead, my chopped-up
bones mouldering outside the throne room.'
    'It is your way, my friend, to disarm your own achievements.'
    'Onrack—'
    Quick Ben laughed. 'He's calling you modest, Edur. And
don't bother denying the truth of that – you still manage to
startle me on that count. I've lived most of my life among
mages or in the ranks of an army, and in neither company
did I ever find much in the way of self-deprecation. We
were all too busy pissing on each other's trees. One needs a
certain level of, uh, bravado when it's your job to kill
people.'
    'Trull Sengar fought as a soldier,' Onrack said to the
wizard. 'The difference between you two is that he is unable
to hide his grief at the frailty of life.'
    'Nothing frail about us,' Quick Ben muttered. 'Life stays
stubborn until it has no choice but to give up, and even
then it's likely to spit one last time in the eye of whatever's
killed it. We're cruel in victory and cruel in defeat, my
friends. Now, if you two will be quiet for a moment, I can
go in search of a way out of here.'
    'Not flying?' Trull asked, leaning on his spear.
    'No, a damned gate. I'm beginning to suspect this lake
doesn't end.'
    'It must end,' the Edur said.
    'The Abyss is not always twisted with wild storms.
Sometimes it's like this – placid, colourless, a tide rising so
slowly that it's impossible to notice, but rise it