A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

Master Quell. By the Abyss, there must be
warrens where one can journey through in peace?'
    Master Quell rubbed at his face. 'Realms resist, Gruntle.
We are like a splash of water in hot oil. It's all I can do to
not . . . bounce us off. Mages can push themselves into
their chosen warrens – it's not easy, it's a game of subtle
persuasion most of the time. Or a modest assertion of will.
You don't want to blast a hole from one realm to the next,
because that's likely to go out of control. It can devour a
mage in an instant.' He looked up at them with bloodshot
eyes. 'We can't do it that way.' He waved a weak hand at
the carriage behind him. 'We arrive like an insult. We are an insult. Like a white-hot spear point, we punch through,
race along our wild path, and all that we leave in our wake
I need to make sure is, er, cauterized. Seared shut. Failing
that, a rush of power explodes behind us, and that's a wave
no mortal can ride for long.'
    Precious Thimble spoke from behind Mappo. 'You must
be High Mages, then, one and all.'
    To her observation, Master Quell nodded. 'I admit, it's
starting to trouble me, this way of travel. I think we're
scarring the whole damned universe. We're making
existence . . . bleed. Oh, just a seep here and there, amidst
whatever throbs of pain reality might possess. In any case,
that's why there's no peaceful path, Gruntle. Denizens in
every realm are driven to annihilate us.'
    'You said we did not even reach Hood's Gate,' the barbed
man said after a moment. 'And yet . . .'
    'Aye.' He spat on to the sand. 'The dead sleep no more.
What a damned mess.'
    'Find us the nearest land in our own world,' said Mappo.
'I will walk from there. Make my own way—'
'We stay true to the contract, Trell. We'll deliver you
where you want to go—'
'Not at the price of you and your companions possibly
dying – I cannot accept that, Master Quell.'
    'We don't do refunds.'
    'I do not ask for one.'
    Master Quell rose shakily. 'We'll see after our next leg.
For now, it's time for breakfast. There's nothing worse than
heaving when there's nothing in the gut to heave.'
    Gruntle also straightened. 'You have decided on a new
path?'
    Quell grimaced. 'Look around, Gruntle. It's been decided
for us.'
    Mappo rose and remained at Gruntle's side as Quell
staggered to his crew, who were gathered round a brazier
they had dragged out from the belly of the carriage. The
Trell squinted at the modest plot of land. 'What did he
mean?' he asked.
    Gruntle shrugged. When he smiled at Mappo his fangs
gleamed. 'Since I have to guess, Trell, I'd say we're going
for a swim.'
    And Precious Thimble snorted. 'Mael's realm. And you
two thought Hood was bad.'
    When she was four years old, Precious Thimble was given a
breathing tube and buried in peat, where she remained for
two days and one night. She probably died. Most of them
did, but the soul remained in the dead body, trapped by the
peat and its dark, sorcerous qualities. This was how the old
witches explained things. A child must be given into the
peat, into that unholy union of earth and water, and the
soul must be broken free of the flesh it dwelt within, for
only then could that soul travel, only then could that soul
wander free in the realm of dreams.
    She had few memories of that time in the peat. Perhaps
she screamed, sought to thrash in panic. The ropes that
bound her, that would be used to pull her free at dusk of the
second day, had left deep burns on her wrists and her neck,
and these burns had not come from the gentle, measured
pressure when the witches had drawn her back into the
world. It was also whispered that sometimes the spirits that
lurked in the peat sought to steal the child's body, to make
it a place of their own. And the witches who sat guarding
the temporary grave told of times when the rope – its ends
wrapped about their wrists – suddenly grew taut, and a
battle would then begin, between the witches of the surface
and the spirits of the deep. Sometimes, it was admitted, the
witches lost, the ropes were gnawed unto breaking, and
the child was pulled into the foul deep, emerging only
once every year, on the Night of the Awakened. Children
with blue-brown skin and hollowed-out eye sockets, with
hair the colour of rust or blood, with long polished nails
– walking the swamp and singing songs of the earth that
could drive a mortal mad.
    Had spirits come for her? The witches would not say.
Were the burns on her skin the result of panic, or something
else? She