Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,62

secrets long since lost – that inspired them to do honour to the Jaghut dwellings and the single, oddly different tower in their midst.

The truth had crumbled along with the enclosure walls, and no answers could be found sifting the dust of crumbled mortar and flakes of exfoliated schist. The area, while no longer sealed, was by habit avoided. The land itself was worthless, by virtue of a royal proclamation six centuries old that prohibited demolition of the ancient structures, and subsequent resettlement. Every legal challenge or, indeed, enquiry regarding that proclamation was summarily dismissed without even so much as recourse to the courts.

All very well. Skilled practitioners of the tiles of the Holds well knew the significance of that squat, square, leaning tower with its rumpled, overgrown grounds. And indeed of the Jaghut dwellings, representative as they were of the Ice Hold. Many held that the Azath tower was the very first true structure of the Azath on this world.

From her new perspective, Shurq Elalle was less sceptical than she might have once been. The grounds surrounding the battered grey stone tower exerted an ominous pull on the dead thief. There were kin there, but not of blood. No, this was the family of the undead, of those unable or unwilling to surrender to oblivion. In the case of those interred in the lumpy, clay-shot earth around the tower, their graves were prisons. The Azath did not give up its children.

She sensed as well that there were living creatures buried there, most of them driven mad by centuries upon centuries snared in ancient roots that held them fast. Others remained ominously silent and motionless, as if awaiting eternity's end.

The thief approached the forbidden grounds behind the palace. She could see the Azath tower, its third and uppermost storey edging above the curved walls of the Jaghut dwellings. Not one of the structures stood fully upright. All were tilted in some fashion, the subsurface clay squeezing out from beneath their immense weight or lenses of sand washed away by underground runoff. Vines had climbed the sides in chaotic webs, although those that had reached out to the Azath died there, withered against the foundation stones amidst yellowed grasses.

She did not need to see the blood trail in order to follow it. The smell was heavy in the sultry night air, invisible streaks riding the currents, and she pursued its wake until she came to the low, crooked wall surrounding the Azath tower.

Just beyond, at the base of a twisted tree, sat the child Kettle. Nine or ten years old ... for ever. Naked, her pale skin smeared, her long hair clotted with coagulating blood. The corpse before her was already half under the earth, being dragged down into the darkness.

To feed the Azath? Or some ravenous denizen? Shurq had no idea. Nor did she care. The grounds swallowed bodies, and that was useful.

Kettle looked up, black eyes dully reflecting starlight. There were moulds that, if left unattended, could blind, and the film was thick over the girl's dead eyes. She slowly rose and walked over.

'Why won't you be my mother?'

'I've already told you, Kettle. I am no-one's mother.'

'I followed you tonight.'

'You're always following me,' Shurq said.

'Just after you left that roof, another man came to the house. A soldier. And he was followed.'

'And which of the two did you kill?'

'Why, the one who followed, of course. I'm a good girl. I take care of you. Just as you take care of me—'

'I take care of no-one, Kettle. You were dead long before I was. Living here in these grounds. I used to bring you bodies.'

'Never enough.'

'I don't like killing. Only when I have no choice. Besides, I wasn't the only one employing your services.'

'Yes you were.'

Shurq stared at the girl for a long moment. 'I was?'

'Yes. And you wanted to know my story. Everyone else runs from me, just like they run from you now. Except that man on the roof. Is he another one not like everyone else?'

'I don't know, Kettle. But I am working for him now.'

'I am glad. Grown-ups should work. It helps fill their minds. Empty minds are bad. Dangerous. They fill themselves up. With bad things. Nobody's happy.'

Shurq cocked her head. 'Who's not happy?'

Kettle waved one grubby hand at the rumpled yard. 'Restless. All of them. I don't know why. The tower sweats all the time now.'

'I will bring you some salt water,' Shurq said, 'for your eyes. You need to wash them out.'

'I can