Gardens of the Moon

Paran sagged, the fires within him ebbing. Glancing down at the Finnest, he saw roots and fibrous tendrils rising from the wet earth to wrap themselves around the battered apparition and begin to pull their captive down into the cloying mud. In a moment, the Finnest was gone.



The T'lan Imass released Paran and stepped back. It regarded him steadily for a long moment.



Paran spat blood and splinters from his mouth, wiped his lips with the back of a hand. He bent down and retrieved Chance. “Damned luck turned,” he mumbled, sheathing the weapon. “Do you have something to say, Imass?”



“You are a long way from home, mortal.”



Paran reappeared a moment later, staggering half-blind across the terrace, then collapsing in a heap. Quick Ben scowled. What in Hood's Breath happened to him?



A Jaghut curse escaped Mammot, fierce as if ripped from the soul. The old man regained his feet, trembling with rage. Then his hooded eyes were on the wizard.



“Awaken the Seven within me!” Quick Ben roared, then shrieked as seven Warrens opened within him. His agonized scream rode the cascading waves of power as they swept across the terrace.



The Jaghut Possessed threw up his arms before his face as the waves struck. Mammot's body withered beneath the clambering, frenzied attack. Flesh was ripped away, fires lancing, boring holes through him.



He was driven to his knees, a vortex swirling like madness around him. Mammot howled, raising a fist that was nothing but charred bone.



The fist spasmed and one of Quick Ben's Warrens slammed shut. The fist jerked again.



Quick Ben sagged. “I'm done.”



Derudan grabbed a handful of the wizard's cloak. “Wizard! Listen to me!”



Another Warren was driven away. Quick Ben shook his head. “done.”



“Listen! That man-the one over there-what's he doing?”



Quick Ben looked up. “Hood's Breath!” he yelled, in sudden terror. A dozen paces away crouched Hedge, only his head and shoulders showing behind a bench. The saboteur's eyes shone with a manic glaze that the wizard recognized, and a large, bulky arbalest was in his hands, point directly at Mammot.



A wordless, wailing scream came from Hedge.



The wizard shouted and dived for the woman a second time. As he flew through the air, he heard the thock of the saboteur's crossbow. Quick Ben closed his eyes before colliding once again with the woman.



Crone flew tight circles over the plain where the Jaghut Tyrant had been.



He had reached to within fifty paces of Silanah, then vanished. Not a flight through a Warren, but a vanishing more complete, more absolute and all the more fascinating for that.



It had been a glorious night, a battle worthy of remembrance, and its end proved no end at all. “Delicious mystery,” she cackled. Crone knew her presence was demanded elsewhere, but she was reluctant to leave.



“Such terrible energies I have witnessed.” She laughed. “I mock the waste, the sheer foolishness! Ah, and now all that remains is questions, questions!”



She craned her head upward. Her lord's two Tiste And? Soletaken remained overhead. No one wanted to leave before the truth of the Jaghut Tyrant's fate was revealed. They'd earned the right to witness it, though Crone was beginning to suspect such answers would never come.



Silanah loosed a keening cry, then rose from the ground, the Warren that birthed her flight a strong, pungent exhalation. The red dragon's head swung westward, and she voiced a second cry.



With a mad flap of wings, Crone brought her descent under control, then skirted the tattered ground. She climbed skyward again, and saw what Silanah had seen. Crone shrieked in joy and anticipation-and surprise. “And now it comes! It comes!”



As he shut his eyes, Quick Ben collapsed the last of his Warrens. The woman's arms closed around him as he struck her. She grunted loudly and collapsed beneath his momentum.



The detonation snatched the air from his lungs. The stones under them jumped and a flash of fire and flying masonry filled their world to the exclusion of all else. Then everything was still.



Quick Ben sat up. He looked to where Mammot had been standing.



The paving stones were gone, and a wide, deep, steaming hole now yawned near the shattered fountain. The old man was nowhere in sight.



“Dear wizard,” the woman murmured beneath him. “We live?”



Quick Ben glanced down at her. “You'd closed your Warren. Very clever.”



“Closed, yes, but not by choice. Why clever?”



“Moranth munitions are mundane weapons, Witch. Opened Warrens draw their explosive force. That Tyrant is dead. Obliterated.”