Dust of Dreams

the problem with the Bonehunters, isn’t it?
    Nobody can keep them out of
anyone’s
way.
     
    Standing motionless in the shadows of the alley—after the ex-priest had gone inside—waited the Errant.
    The thirteenth player in this night’s game.
    Had he known that—had he been able to pierce the fog now thickening within that dread chamber and so make full count of those present—he would have turned round, discarding all his plans. No, he would have run for the hills.
    Instead, the god waited, with murder in his heart.
    As the city’s sand clocks and banded wicks—insensate and indifferent to aught but the inevitable progression of time—approached the sounding of the bells.
    To announce the arrival of midnight.

Chapter Two
    Do not come here old friend

If you bring bad weather
I was down where the river ran
Running no more
Recall that span of bridge?

Gone now the fragments grey
And scattered on the sand
Nothing to cross
You can walk the water’s flow
Wending slow into the basin
And find the last place where
Weather goes to die
If I see you hove into view
I’ll know your resurrection’s come
In tears rising to drown my feet
In darkening sky
You walk like a man burned blind
Groping hands out to the sides
I’d guide you but this river
Will not wait
Rushing me to the swallowing sea
Beneath fleeing birds of white
Do not come here old friend
If you bring bad weather
     
    B RIDGE OF THE S UN
    F ISHER KEL T ATH

    H
e stood amidst the rotted remnants of ship timbers, tall yet hunched, and if not for his tattered clothes and long, wind-tugged hair, he could have been a statue, a thing of bleached marble, toppled from the Meckros city behind him to land miraculously upright on the colourless loess. For as long as Udinaas had been watching, the distant figure had not moved.
    A scrabble of pebbles announced the arrival of someone else coming up from the village, and a moment later Onrack T’emlava stepped up beside him. The warrior said nothing for a time, a silent, solid presence.
    This was not a world to be rushed through, Udinaas had come to realize; not that he’d ever been particularly headlong in the course of his life. For a long time since his arrival here in the Refugium, he had felt as if he were dragging chains, or wading through water. The slow measure of time in this place resisted hectic presumptions, forcing humility, and, Udinaas well knew, humility always arrived uninvited, kicking down doors, shattering walls. It announced itself with a punch to the head, a knee in the groin. Not literally, of course, but the result was the same. Driven to one’s knees, struggling for breath, weak as a sickly child. With the world standing, looming over the fool, slowly wagging one finger.
    There really should be more of that. Why, if I was the god of all gods, it’s the only lesson I would ever deliver, as many times as necessary.
    Then again, that’d make me one busy bastard, wouldn’t it just.
    The sun overhead was cool, presaging the winter to come. The shoulder-women said there would be deep snow in the months ahead. Desiccated leaves, caught in the tawny grasses of the hilltop, fluttered and trembled as if shivering in dread anticipation. He’d never much liked the cold—the slightest chill and his hands went numb.
    ‘What does he want?’ Onrack asked.
    Udinaas shrugged.
    ‘Must we drive him off?’
    ‘No, Onrack, I doubt that will be necessary. For the moment, I think, there’s no fight left in him.’
    ‘You know more of this than me, Udinaas. Even so, did he not murder a child? Did he not seek to kill Trull Sengar?’
    ‘He crossed weapons with Trull?’ Udinaas asked. ‘My memories of that are vague. I was preoccupied getting smothered by a wraith at the time. Well, then, friend, I can understand how you might want to see the last of him. As for Kettle, I don’t think any of that was as simple as it looked. The girl was already dead, long dead, before the Azath seeded her. All Silchas Ruin did was crack the shell so the House could send down its roots. In the right place and at the right time, thus ensuring the survival of this realm.’
    The Imass was studying him, his soft, brown eyes nested in lines of sorrow, in lines that proved that he felt things too deeply. This fierce warrior who had—apparently—once been naught but leathery skin and bones was now as vulnerable as a child. This trait seemed true of all the Imass. ‘You knew, then, all along, Udinaas? The fate awaiting