A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

the
delivering.'
    'Why, I could deny you nothing, Captain,' Ballant said,
then felt his face flush.
    But she just smiled.
    He liked these inconsequential conversations. Not much
different from those he used to have with his wife. And . . .
yes, here it was – that sudden sense of a yawning abyss
awaiting his next step. Nostalgia rose within him, brimming
his eyes.
    Under siege, dear husband? One swing of this fist and
those walls will come tumbling down – you do know that,
husband, don't you?
    Oh yes, my love.
    Odd, sometimes he would swear she'd never left. Dead or
not, she still had teeth.
    Blue-grey mould filled pocks in the rotted ice like snow's
own fur, shedding with the season as the sun's bright heat
devoured the glacier. But winter, when it next came, would
do little more than slow the inexorable disintegration. This
river of ice was dying, an age in retreat.
    Seren Pedac had scant sense of the age to come, since
she felt she was drowning in its birth, swept along in the
mud and refuse of long-frozen debris. Periodically, as their
discordant, constantly bickering party climbed ever higher
into the northern Bluerose Mountains, they would hear the
thundering collapse of distant ice cliffs, calving beneath
the besieging sun; and everywhere water streamed across
bared rock, coughed its way along channels and fissures,
swept past them in its descent into darkness – the journey
to the sea just begun – swept past, to traverse subterranean
caverns, shadowed gorges, sodden forests.
    The mould was sporing, and that had triggered a recoil of
Seren's senses – her nose was stuffed, her throat was dry and
sore and she was racked with bouts of sneezing that had
proved amusing enough to elicit even a sympathetic smile
from Fear Sengar. That hint of sympathy alone earned her
forgiveness – the pleasure the others took at her discomfort
deserved nothing but reciprocation, when the opportunity
arose, and she was certain it would.
    Silchas Ruin, of course, was not afflicted with a sense of
humour, in so far as she could tell. Or its dryness beggared
a desert. Besides, he strode far enough ahead to spare himself
her sneezing fits, with the Tiste Andii, Clip, only a few
strides in his wake – like a sparrow harassing a hawk. Every
now and then some fragment of Clip's monologue drifted
back to where Seren and her companions struggled along,
and while it was clear that he was baiting the brother of his
god, it was equally evident that the Mortal Sword of the
Black-Winged Lord was, as Udinaas had remarked, using
the wrong bait.
    Four days now, this quest into the ravaged north, climbing
the spine of the mountains. Skirting huge masses of
broken ice that slid – almost perceptibly – ever downslope,
voicing terrible groans and gasps. The leviathans are fatally wounded, Udinaas once observed, and will not go quietly.
    Melting ice exuded a stench beyond the acrid bite of the
mould spores. Decaying detritus: vegetation and mud
frozen for centuries; the withered corpses of animals, some
of them beasts long extinct, leaving behind twisted hides of
brittle fur every whisper of wind plucked into the air,
fractured bones and bulging cavities filled with gases that
eventually burst, hissing out fetid breath. It was no wonder
Seren Pedac's body was rebelling.
    The migrating mountains of ice were, it turned out,
cause for the near-panic among the Tiste Andii inhabitants
of the subterranean monastery. The deep gorge that marked
its entrance branched like a tree to the north, and back
down each branch now crawled packed snow and
enormous blocks of ice, with streams of meltwater providing
the grease, ever speeding their southward migration.
And there was fetid magic in that ice, remnants of an
ancient ritual still powerful enough to defeat the Onyx
Wizards.
    Seren Pedac suspected that there was more to this
journey, and to Clip's presence, than she and her companions
had been led to believe. We walk towards the heart of that ritual, to the core that remains. Because a secret awaits us there.
    Does Clip mean to shatter the ritual? What will happen if he does?
    And what if to do so ruins us? Our chances of finding the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye, of releasing it?
    She was beginning to dread this journey's end.
    There will be blood.
    Swathed in the furs the Andii had provided, Udinaas
moved up alongside her. 'Acquitor, I have been thinking.'
    'Is that wise?' she asked.
    'Of course not, but it's not as if I can help it. The same
for you,