Dust of Dreams: Book Nine of The Malazan Book of the Fallen - By Steven Erikson Page 0,7

day when it’s all put to use, everything, right over the surface of the world. Cities merging into one—’

‘There’d be no farms,’ objected Last, but as always it was a mild, diffident objection. ‘Without farms, nobody eats—’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ snapped Sheb. ‘Of course there’d be farms. Just none of this kind of useless land, where nothing lives but damned rats. Rats in the ground, rats in the air, and bugs, and bones—can you believe all the bones?’

‘But I—’

‘Be quiet, Last,’ said Sheb. ‘You never got nothing useful to say, ever.’

Asane then spoke in her frail, quavering voice. ‘No fighting, please. It’s horrible enough without you picking fights, Sheb—’

‘Careful, hag, or you’re next.’

‘Care to try me, Sheb?’ Nappet asked. He spat. ‘Didn’t think so. You talk, Sheb, and that’s all you do. One of these nights, when you’re asleep, I’m gonna cut out your tongue and feed it to the fuckin’ capemoths. Who’d complain? Asane? Breath? Last? Taxilian? Rautos? Nobody, Sheb, we’d all be dancing.’

‘Leave me out of this,’ said Rautos. ‘I suffered enough for a lifetime when I was living with my wife and, needless to say, I don’t miss her.’

‘Here goes Rautos again,’ snarled Breath. ‘My wife did this, my wife said that. I’m sick of hearing about your wife. She ain’t here, is she? You probably drowned her, and that’s why you’re on the run. You drowned her in your fancy fountain, just held her down, watching as her eyes went wide, her mouth opened and she screamed through the water. You watched and smiled, that’s what you did. I don’t forget, I can’t forget, it was awful. You’re a murderer, Rautos.’

‘There she goes,’ said Sheb, ‘talking about drowning again.’

‘Might cut out her tongue, too,’ said Nappet, grinning. ‘Rautos’s, too. No more shit about drowning or wives or complainin’—the rest of you are fine. Last, you don’t say nothing and when you do, it don’t rile nobody. Asane, you mostly know when to keep your mouth shut. And Taxilian hardly ever says nothing anyway. Just us, and that’d be—’

‘I see something,’ said Rautos.

He felt their attentions shift, find focus, and he saw with their eyes a vague smudge on the horizon, something thrusting skyward, too narrow to be a mountain, too massive to be a tree. Still leagues away, rising like a tooth.

‘I want to see that,’ announced Taxilian.

‘Shit,’ said Nappet, ‘ain’t nowhere else to go.’

The others silently agreed. They had been walking for what seemed forever, and the arguments about where they should go had long since withered away. None of them had any answers, none of them even knew where they were.

And so they set out for that distant, mysterious edifice.

He was content with that, content to go with them, and he found himself sharing Taxilian’s curiosity, which grew in strength and if challenged would easily overwhelm Asane’s fears and the host of obsessions plaguing the others—Breath’s drowning, Rautos’s miserable marriage, Last’s meaningless life of diffidence, Sheb’s hatred and Nappet’s delight in viciousness. And now the conversations fell away, leaving naught but the crunch and thud of bare feet on the rough ground, and the low moan of the ceaseless wind.

High above, a score of capemoths tracked the lone figure walking across the Wastelands. They had been drawn by the sound of voices, only to find this solitary, gaunt figure. Skin of dusty green, tusks framing its mouth. Carrying a sword but otherwise naked. A lone wanderer, who spoke in seven voices, who knew himself by seven names. He was many, but he was one. They were all lost, and so was he.

The capemoths hungered for his life to end. But it had been weeks. Months. In the meantime, they just hungered.

There were patterns and they demanded consideration. The elements remained disarticulated, however, in floating tendrils, in smears of loose black like stains swimming in his vision. But at least he could now see, and that was something. The rotted cloth had pulled away from his eyes, tugged by currents he could not feel.

The key to unlocking everything would be found in the patterns. He was certain of that. If only he could draw them together, he would understand; he would know all he needed to know. He would be able to make sense of the visions that tore through him.

The strange two-legged lizard, all clad in black gleaming armour, its tail nothing more than a stub, standing on a stone landing of some sort, whilst rivers of blood flowed down gutters to each side.