A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

surface. And he was sucking in icy
lungfuls of air.
    Darkness, the rush and gurgle of water flowing past,
seeking to pull him back, back and down. But Bainisk
was tugging him along, and it was getting shallower as the
tunnel widened. The black, dripping ceiling seemed to be
sagging, forming a crooked spine overhead. Harllo stared
up at it, wondering how he could see at all.
    And then he was being dragged across broken stone.
    They halted, lying side by side.
    Before too long, the shivering began. Racing into Harllo
like demonic possession, a spirit that shook through him
with rabid glee. His teeth chattered uncontrollably.
    Bainisk was plucking at him. Through clacking teeth he
said, 'Venaz won't stop. He'll see the lantern – he'll know.
We got to keep going, Harllo. It's the only way to get warm
again, the only way to get away.'
    But it was so hard to climb to his feet. His legs still didn't
work properly. Bainisk had to help him and he leaned
heavily on the bigger boy as they staggered skidding upslope
along the scree-scattered path.
    It seemed to Harllo that they walked for ever, into and
out of faint light. Sometimes the slope pitched downward,
only to slowly climb yet again. Pain throbbed in Harllo's
legs now, but it was welcome – life was returning, filled
with its stubborn fire, and now he wanted to live, now it
mattered more than anything else.
    'Look!' Bainisk gasped. 'At what we're walking on
– Harllo, look!'
    Phosphorescent mould limned the walls, and in the faint
glow Harllo could make out the vague shapes of the rubble
underfoot. Broken pottery. Small fragments of burned
bone.
    'It's got to lead up,' Bainisk said. 'To some cave. The
Gadrobi used them to bury their ancestors. A cave overlooking
the lake. We're almost there.'
    Instead, they reached a cliff ledge.
    And stood, silent.
    A vertical section of rock had simply plummeted
away, leaving a broad gap. The bottom of the fissure was
swallowed in black, from which warm air rose in dry gusts.
Opposite them, ten or more paces across, a slash of diffuse
light revealed the continuation of the tunnel they had
been climbing.
    'We'll climb down,' said Bainisk, uncoiling the rope and
starting to tie a knot at one end. 'And then back up. We
can do this, you'll see.'
    'What if the rope's not long enough? I can't see the bottom,
Bainisk.'
    'We'll just find more handholds.' Now he was tying a
loop at the other end which he then set round a knob-like
projection. 'I'll throw a snake back up to dislodge this, so
we can take the rope with us for the climb up the other
side. Now, you go first.' He tossed the rest of the rope over
the edge. They heard it snap out to its full length. Bainisk
grunted. 'Like I said, we can find handholds.'
    Harllo worked his way over the side, gripping hard the
wet rope – it wanted to slide through, but if that happened
he knew he was dead, so he held tight. His feet scrambled,
found shallow ledges running at an angle across the
cliff-face. Not much, but they eased the strain. He began
working his way down.
    He was perhaps three body-lengths down when Bainisk
began following. The rope began swaying unpredictably,
and Harllo found his feet slipping from their scant
purchases again and again, each time resulting in a savage
tug on his arms.
    'Bainisk!' he hissed. 'Wait! Let me go a little farther
down first – you're throwing me about.'
    'Okay. Go on.'
    Harllo found purchase again and resumed the descent.
    If Bainisk started up again he no longer felt the sways
and tugs. The rope was getting wetter, which meant that he
was reaching its end – the water was soaking its way down.
And then he reached the sodden knot. Sudden panic as
he sought to find projections in the wall for his feet. There
were very few – the stone was almost sheer.
    'Bainisk! I'm at the knot!' He craned his neck to look
down. Blackness, unrelieved, depthless. 'Bainisk! Where
are you?'
    Since Harllo's first call, Bainisk had not moved. The last
thing he wanted to do was accidentally dislodge the boy,
not after they'd made it this far. And, truth be told, he was
experiencing a growing fear. This wall was too even – no
cracks, the strata he could feel little more than ripples at a
steeply canted angle. They would never be able to hold on
once past the rope – and there was nothing he could use to
slip the loop round.
    They were, he realized, in trouble.
    Upon hearing Harllo's last call – the boy reaching the
knot – he readied himself to resume his