The Bonehunters

'Efflu-what? No. Tell you what, how about I head up there and take that You'd rather not say by the overlong out-of-style braid on top of his head and give 'im a shake or three?'



'I don't see how that would help.'



'Well, it'd cheer me up, not for any particular gripe, mind you, but just on principle. Maybe You'd rather not say'd rather not talk to you, have you thought of that? Or maybe you'd rather not.'



'I have to talk to him.'



'Important, huh?'



'Yes.'



'Imperial interest?'



'No, at least I don't think so.'



'Tell you what, I'll grab him by his cute braid and dangle him from the tower. You can signal from below. I swing him back and forth and it means he says "Sure, come on up, old friend". And if I just drop ' im it means the other thing. That, or my hands got tired and maybe slipped.'



'You're not helpful at all, Braven Tooth.'



'Wasn't me sitting at your table, was you sitting at mine.'



Banaschar leaned back, sighing. 'Fine. Here, I'll buy you some more tea-'



'What, you trying to poison me now?'



'All right, how about we share a pitcher of Malazan Dark?'



The huge man leaned forward, meeting Banaschar's eyes for the first time. 'Better. Y'see, I'm in mourning.'



'Oh?'



'The news from Y'Ghatan.' He snorted. 'It's always the news from Y'



Ghatan, ain't it? Anyway, I've lost some friends.'



'Ah.'



'So, tonight,' Braven Tooth said, 'I plan on getting drunk. For them.



I can't cry unless I'm drunk, you see.'



'So why the red-vine tea?'



Braven Tooth looked up as someone arrived, and gave the man an ugly smile. 'Ask Temper here. Why the red-vine tea, you old hunkered-down bastard?'



'Plan on crying tonight, Braven Tooth?'



The Master Sergeant nodded.



Temper levered himself into a chair that creaked alarmingly beneath him. Red-shot eyes fixed on Banaschar. 'Makes his tears the colour of blood. Story goes, he's only done it once before, and that was when Dassem Ultor died.'



Gods below, must I witness this tonight? 'It's what I get,' Braven Tooth muttered, head down once more, 'for believin' everything I hear.'



Banaschar frowned at the man opposite him. Now what does that mean?



The pitcher of ale arrived, as if conjured by their silent desires, and Banaschar, relieved of further contemplation – and every other demanding stricture of thought – settled back, content to weather yet another night.



'Aye, Master (or Mistress), he sat with them veterans, pretending he belonged, but really he's just an imposter. Sat there all night, until Coop had to carry him out. Where is he now? why, in his smelly, filthy room, dead to the world. Yes indeed, Banaschar is dead to the world.'



****

The rain descended in torrents, streaming over the battlements, down along the blood-gutters, and the cloud overhead had lowered in the past twenty heartbeats, swallowing the top of the old tower. The window Pearl looked through had once represented the pinnacle of island technology, a fusing of sand to achieve a bubbled, mottled but mostly transparent glass. Now, a century later, its surface was patinated in rainbow patterns, and the world beyond was patchy, like an incomplete mosaic, the tesserae melting in some world-consuming fire. Although sight of the flames eluded Pearl, he knew, with fearful certainty, that they were there, and no amount of rain from the skies could change that.



It had been flames, after all, that had destroyed his world. Flames that took her, the only woman he had ever loved. And there had been no parting embrace, no words of comfort and assurance exchanged. No, just that edgy dance round each other, and neither he nor Lostara had seemed capable of deciding whether that dance was desire or spite.



Even here, behind this small window and the thick stone walls, he could hear the battered, encrusted weather vane somewhere overhead, creaking and squealing in the buffeting gusts of wind assailing Mock's Hold. And he and Lostara had been no different from that weather vane, spinning, tossed this way and that, helpless victim to forces ever beyond their control. Beyond, even, their comprehension. And didn't that sound convincing? Hardly.



The Adjunct had sent them on a quest, and when its grisly end arrived, Pearl had realized that the entire journey had been but a prelude – as far as his own life was concerned – and that his own quest yet awaited him. Maybe it had been simple enough – the object of his desire would proclaim to his soul the consummation of that quest. Maybe she had been what he sought. But Pearl was not certain of that, not any more.