Dust of Dreams (21 page)

He heard her stir into motion behind him, the soft grunt as she climbed upright, and then she was beside him. ‘Are they dead, Bugg?’

He turned and glanced at the now conjoined, colourless puddles on the floor beneath the two chairs. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, and then added, ‘I think so.’

‘Th-that was not . . . expected—please tell me, Ceda, that such a fate was not in the plans tonight.’

‘No, Acquitor.’

‘Then . . .
what happened
?’

He rubbed at the bristles on his chin, and then sighed and shook his head. ‘She chooses a narrow path—gods, the audacity of it! I must speak with the King. And with Brys—we need to decide—’

‘Ceda! Who killed Pinosel and Ursto?’

He faced her, blinked. ‘Death but passed through. Even the Errant was . . . dismissed.’ He snorted. ‘Yes.
Dismissed.
There is so much power in this Deck of Dragons. In the right hands, it could drain us all dry. Every god, new and elder. Every ascendant cast into a role. Every mortal doomed to become a face on a card.’ He resumed his gaze out the window. ‘He dropped one on to the table. Your son’s. The table would hold it, he said. Thus, he made no effort to claim your son. He let it be. He let
him
be.’ And then he shivered. ‘Pinosel and Ursto—they just sat too close to the fire.’

‘They . . . what?’

‘
The caster held back, Acquitor.
No one attacked Ursto and Pinosel. Even your unborn son’s card did not try for
him
. The caster locked it down. As would a carpenter driving a nail through a plank of wood. Abyss take me, the sheer
brazen
power to do that leaves me breathless. Acquitor, Ursto and Pinosel were here to defend you from the Errant. And yes, we felt him. We felt his murderous desire. But then he was thrown back, his power scattered. What arrived in its place was like the face of the sun, ever growing, becoming so vast as to fill the world—they were
pinned there, trapped in those chairs, unable to move . . .’ He shook himself. ‘We all were.’ He looked down at the puddles. ‘Acquitor, I truly do not know if they are dead. The Lord of Death fed on no one this night, beyond a few hapless souls in a destroyed inn. They may be simply . . . reduced . . . and after a time they will reconstitute themselves, find their shapes—their flesh and bone—once more. I do not know, yet I will hope.’

He saw her studying his face, and wondered if he’d managed to hide any of his anxiety, his grief. The look in her eyes spoke of his failure.

‘Speak with this caster,’ she said. ‘And . . . ask him . . . to refrain. Never again in this city. Please.’

‘He was unwilling, Acquitor. He did what he could. To protect . . . everyone.’
Except, I think, himself.
‘I do not think there will be another reading.’

She stared out the window. ‘What awaits him? My . . . son,’ she asked in a whisper.

He understood her question. ‘He will have you, Seren Pedac. Mothers possess a strength, vast and strange—’

‘Strange?’

Bugg smiled. ‘Strange to us. Unfathomable. Also, your son’s father was much loved. There will be those among his friends who would not hesitate—’

‘Onrack T’emlava,’ she said.

Bugg nodded. ‘An Imass.’

‘Whatever that is.’

‘Acquitor, the Imass are many things, and among those things, one virtue stands above all the others. Their loyalty cannot be sundered. They feel such forces with a depth vast and—’

‘Strange?’

Bugg said nothing for a moment, knowing that he could, if he so chose, be offended by the implication in that lone word she had added to his sentence. Instead, he smiled. ‘Even so.’

‘I am sorry, Ceda. You are right. Onrack was . . . remarkable, and a great comfort to me. Still, I do not expect him to visit again.’

‘He will, when your son is born.’

‘How will he know when that happens?’

‘Because his bonecaster wife, Kilava, set a blessing upon you and your child. By this means she remains aware of you and your condition.’

‘Oh. Would she have sensed tonight, then? The risk? The danger?’

‘Perhaps,’ Bugg replied. ‘She would have been . . . attentive. And had some form of breach occurred to directly threaten you, then I suspect that yes, she would have . . . intervened.’

‘How could she have hoped to defend me,’ Seren said, ‘if three ancient gods had already failed?’

Bugg sighed. ‘A conviction I am slowly coming to accept. People do not understand power. They view it exclusively as a contest, this against that; which is the greater? Which wins, which fails? Power is less about actual conflict—recognizing as it does the mutual damage conflict entails, with such damage making one
vulnerable—less about actual conflict, then, than it is about statements.
Presence
, Acquitor, is power’s truest expression. And presence is, at its core, the occupation of space. An assertion, if you will. One that must be acknowledged by other powers, lesser or greater, it matters not.’

‘I am not sure I understand you.’

‘Kilava would have invoked her presence, Acquitor. One that embraced you. Now, if you still insist on simplistic comparisons, then I tell you, she would have been as a stone in a stream. The water may dream of victory, may even yearn for it, but it had best learn patience, yes? Consider every dried stream bed you have seen, Acquitor, and judge who was the ultimate victor in that war of patience.’

The woman sighed, and Bugg heard her exhaustion.

He bowed to her. ‘I shall leave—matters remain pressing for me—but the danger to you and your unborn son has passed.’

She glanced back at the puddles. ‘Do I just . . . mop that up?’

‘Leave it for the morning—it may be that you will find little more than a stain by then.’

‘I can point to it when I have guests and say: “This is where two gods melted.” ’

Yes, she had need to defend herself against the events of this night. No room in her thoughts, for the moment, for anything but the child within her. Despite her words, she was not indifferent to the sundering of Pinosel and Ursto. Everything right now was about control—and this, Bugg understood, came from that ineffable strength within a woman who was or would be a mother. ‘They are stubborn, those two. I would not discount them quite yet.’

‘I hope you are right. Thank you, Ceda—even if the threat did not come to pass, I do appreciate your willingness to protect us. Please do not be offended if I add that I hope I never experience another night like this.’

‘I take no offence. Goodnight, Acquitor.’

Beyond the moment’s heat, in the cool trickle that was the aftermath of a confrontation, bleak realizations shook free in the mind of the Errant. While he did not know if indeed the Master of the Deck had awakened—as the Malazan had claimed—the risk of such a premature clash had been too great. As for Brys Beddict and his bold arrogance, ah, that was a different matter.

The Errant stood in an alley, not far from the Malazan headquarters, and he trembled with rage and something else, something that tasted delicious. The promise of vengeance. No, Brys Beddict would not survive his return journey to the palace. It did not matter the fool’s skills with a sword. Against the raw assault of the Errant’s sorcery, no flickering blade could defend.

True, this would be no gentle, unseen nudge. But old habits, by their very predictability, could be exploited. Defended against. Besides, at times, the subtle did not satisfy. He recalled, with a rush of pleasure, holding Feather Witch’s head under the water, until her feeble struggles ceased. Yes, there was glory in being so forceful, so direct in the implementation of one’s own will.

It could become addictive, and indeed, he welcomed the invitation.

So much gnawed at him at the moment, however, that he was anxious and wary about doing much of anything. The caster had been . . . frightening. The ones who were made miserable by the use of their own power ever disturbed the Errant, for he could not fathom such creatures, did not understand their reluctance, the self-imposed rules governing their behaviour. Motives were essential—one could not understand one’s enemy without a sense of what they wanted, what they hungered for. But that caster, all he had hungered for was to be left alone.

Perhaps that in itself could be exploited. Except that, clearly, when the caster was pushed, he did not hesitate to push back. Unblinking, smiling, appallingly confident.
Leave him for now. Think of the others—any threats to me?

The Acquitor’s child had guardians assembled to defend it. Those squalid drunks. Mael. Other presences, as well. Something ancient, black-furred with glowing eyes—he’d heard its warning growl, like a rumble of thunder—and that had been enough to discourage the Errant’s approach.

Well, the child could wait.

Oh, this was a vicious war indeed. But he had potential allies. Banaschar. A weak man, one he could use again. And Fener, the cowering god of war—yes, he could feed on the fool’s power. He could take what he wanted, all in exchange for the sanctuary he offered. Finally, there were other forces, far to the east, who might well value his alliance.

Much still to do. But for now, this night, he would have his vengeance against that miserable heap of armour, Brys Beddict.

And so he waited for the fool to depart the headquarters. No nudge this time. No, only his hands on the bastard’s throat would appease the depth of the Errant’s malice. True enough, the man who had died was not the same man who returned. More to Brys Beddict than just an interminable skein of names written into the stone of his soul. There was something else. As if the man cast more than one shadow. If Brys was destined for something else, for something more than he was now, then it behoved the Errant to quell the threat immediately.

Remove him from the game, and this time make certain he stayed dead.

Nothing could be worse than to walk into a room in a middling inn, stride up to the bed, and fling back the woollen blanket, only to find a dragon. Or two. All unwillingly unveiled. And in a single miserable instant, the illusions of essential, mutual protection, are cast off. Violent transformation and lo, it turns out, one small room in an inn cannot hold two dragons.

It is the conviction of serving staff the world over that they have seen everything. The hapless maid working at the inn in question could now make claim to such an achievement. Alas, it was a shortlived triumph.

Telorast and Curdle, sembled once more into their quaint, tiny skeletal forms—which had become so much a part of them, so preciously adorable, that neither could bear to part with the lovely lizards—were now on a hilltop a few leagues north of the city. Once past the indignity of the unexpected event and
their panicked flight from Letheras, they had spent the last bell or so howling in laughter.

The expression on the maid’s face was truly unforgettable, and when Curdle’s draconic head had smashed through the wall to fill the corridor, why, every resident guest had then popped out from their rooms for a look at the source of the terrible ruckus, my, such consternation—Curdle squealed in gut-busting hilarity, or would have, had she a gut.

Telorast’s tiny fangs still glistened with blood, although when she’d last used them they had been much, much larger. An instinctive snap—no one could blame her, not really—had collected up a fat merchant in the street below, a moment before she herself landed to fill it amidst crashing bricks and quarried limestone, and was it not essential among carnivores to indulge in blubber on occasion? It must be so, for some scholar had said it, once, somewhere. In any case, he had been delicious!

Could one blame the shark that takes a swimmer’s leg? The coiling serpent that devours a toddler? The wolves that run down an old woman? Of course not. One might decry the deed and weep for the slain victims, but to then track and hunt the killer down—as if it was some kind of evil murderer—was simply ridiculous. Indeed, it was hubris of the worst sort. ‘It’s the way of the world that there are hunters and the hunted, Curdle. And to live in the world is to accept that as a truth. Beasts eat other beasts, and the same is true for all these precious humans—do they not thrive and preen as hunters? Of course they do. But sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted, yes? Consider if you will and you will: some bow-legged yokel traps a hare for supper—should the rest of the hares all gather and incite themselves into deadly vengeance against that yokel? Would this be proper and just?’

‘I dare say the hares would think so!’ cried Curdle, spiny tail lashing the short grasses.

‘No doubt, no doubt, but think of the outrage among the yokel’s family and friends! Why, there’d be a war, a feud! Soldiers would be called in, slit-eyed scouts and master hunters wearing green floppy hats, the king would raise taxes and a thousand whores would follow in the baggage train! Poets would sing rousing ballads to fan the flames of righteousness! Entire epics would be penned to recount the venal escapades!’

‘They’re just puffed up on themselves, Telorast. That’s all. They’re all emperors and empresses in their own puny minds, don’t you see? With all in the domain theirs to do with as they will. How dare some dumb beast bite back!’

‘We’ll get them in the end, Curdle.’

‘Us and the hares!’

‘Exactly! Rule the domain, will you? No, my friends, the domain rules you!’