Dust of Dreams

smell of salt. Soft rush of gentle waves on white coral beach. Padding breathless on to the strand in a chorus of excited cries and chatter. Culmination of terrifying journeys overland where it seemed home would never again find them. And then, in sudden gift . . .
Shorelines, Quick. Bright sun, hot sand underfoot. Coming home . . . even when the home has never been visited before. And, all at once, they gather to begin building boats.
    ‘Boats?’
    Always boats. Islands. Places where the tawny hunters do not stalk the night. Places, where they can be . . . safe.
    ‘The Eres—’
    Lived for the seas. The oceans. Coming from the great continents, they existed in a state of flight. Shorelines fed them. The vast emptiness beyond the reefs called to them.
    ‘Boats? What kind of boats?’
    It varies—I don’t always travel with the same group. Dug-outs. Reed boats and bamboo rafts. Skins, baskets bridged by saplings—like nests in toppled trees. Quick Ben, the Eres’al—they were smart, smarter than you might think. They weren’t as different from us as they might seem. They conquered the entire world.
    ‘So what happened to them?’
    Bottle shrugged.
I don’t know. I think, maybe,
we
happened to them.
    He had found a sundered doorway. Walking the length of dark, damp corridors and following the narrow staircases spiralling downward to landings ankle-deep in water. Sloshing this way and that, drawing unerringly closer to that pulsing residue of ancient power.
Houses, Tiles, Holds, Wandering—that all sounds simple enough, doesn’t it, Quick Ben? Logical. But what about the roads of the sea? Where do they fit in? Or the siren calls of the wind? The point is, we see ourselves as the great trekkers, the bold travellers and explorers. But the Eres’al, High Mage, they did it first. There isn’t a place we step anywhere in this world that they haven’t stepped first. Humbling thought, isn’t it?
He reached a narrow tunnel with an uneven floor that formed islands between pools. A massive portal with a leaning lintel stone beckoned. He stepped through and saw the causeway, and the broader platform at the end, where stood Quick Ben.
    ‘All right, I’m here, Quick Ben. With soaked feet.’
    The vast chamber was bathed in golden light that rose like mist from the Tiles spreading out from the disc. Quick Ben, head tilted to one side, watched Bottle approach up the causeway, an odd look in his eyes.
    ‘What?’
    He blinked, and then gestured. ‘Look around, Bottle. The Cedance is
alive.
’
    ‘Signifying what?’
    ‘I was hoping you could tell me. The magic here should be waning. We’ve unleashed the warrens, after all. We’ve brought the Deck of Dragons. We’ve slammed the door on Chaos. It’s like bringing the wheel to a tribe that has only used sleds and travois—there’s been a revolution among this kingdom’s mages. Even the priests are finding everything upside down—it’d be nice to sneak a spy into the cult of the Errant. Anyway, this place should be dying, Bottle.’
    Bottle looked round. One Tile close by displayed a scatter of bones carved like impressions into the stone surface, impressions that glowed as if filled with embers. Nearby was another showing an empty throne. But the brightest Tile of all lifted its own image above the flat surface, so that it floated, swirling, in three dimensions. A dragon, wings spread wide, jaws open. ‘Hood’s breath,’ he muttered, repressing a shiver.
    ‘Your roads of the sea, Bottle,’ said Quick Ben. ‘They make me think about Mael.’
    ‘Well, hard not to think about Mael in this city, High Mage.’
    ‘You know, then.’
    Bottle nodded.
    ‘That’s not nearly as worrisome as what was happening back in the Malazan Empire. The ascension of Mallick Rel, the Jhistal.’
    Bottle frowned at Quick Ben. ‘How can that be more worrying than finding an Elder God standing next to the Letherii throne?’
    ‘It’s not the
throne
he’s standing beside. It’s Tehol. From what I gather, that relationship has been there for some time. Mael’s hiding here, trying to keep his head down. But he hasn’t much say when some mortal manages to grasp some of his power, and starts forcing concessions.’
    ‘The Elder God of the Seas,’ said Bottle, ‘was ever a thirsty god. And his daughter isn’t much better.’
    ‘Beru?’
    ‘Who else? The Lady of Fair Seas is an ironic title. It pays,’ he added, eyeing the dragon Tile, ‘not to take things