Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,770

tasks as assigned by the Pilot.'

Gruntle shrugged. 'I was but wondering, Master Quell, what possible use I could be, given that the realm is awash with rabid masses of miserable corpses.'

'I said we'd go in quiet!' 'We could ask the passenger we picked up back there.'

'What? Oh, is he still here?'

'Under the palm trees.'

'Under them? Only a dead man could be so stupid. Fine, let's see what we can find out – but I still need to see some things for myself.'

The rest of the crew, along with Mappo, watched them walk over to the twin palm trees, edging into their shade to stand – nervously – before the gaunt, withered undead who was piling up coconuts into pyramids like catapult ammunition. Even as he worked, unmindful of his new guests, another nut thumped heavily on the sand nearby, making both Gruntle and Quell flinch.

'You,' said Quell.

The ghastly face peered up with shrunken eyes. 'Do you like these? Patterns. I like patterns.'

'Happy for you,' Quell muttered. 'How long have you been dead?'

'How long is a taproot?'

'What? Well, show it to me and I'll guess.'

'It's three times the length of the above ground stalk. In the baraka shrub, anyway. Does the ratio hold for other plants? Should we find out?'

'No. Later, I mean. Look, you were marching with all the rest in Hood's realm. Why? Where were you all going? Or coming from? Was it Hood himself who summoned you? Does he command all the dead now?'

'Hood never commands.'

'That's what I thought, but—'

'Yet now he has.'

Quell's eyes widened. 'He has?'

'How wide is the sky? How deep is the ocean? I think about these things, all the time.'

Gruntle noted the Master gaping, like a beached fish, and so he asked, 'What was your name when you were alive, sir?'

'My name? I don't recall. Being alive, I mean. But I must have been, once. My name is Cartographer.'

'That sounds more like a profession.'

The corpse scratched his forehead, flakes of skin fluttering down. 'It does. An extraordinary coincidence. What were my parents thinking?'

'Perhaps you are but confused. Perhaps you were a cartographer, trained in the making of maps and such.'

'Then it was wise that they named me so, wasn't it? Clever parents.'

'What did Hood command of you, Cartographer?'

'Well, he said "Come" and nothing more. It wasn't a command to create confusion, or arguments regarding interpretation. A simple command. Even dogs understand it, I believe. Dogs and sharks. I have found seventeen species of shellfish on this beach. Proof that the world is round.'

Another nut thudded in the sand.

'We are perturbing this island with our presence,' said the cartographer. 'The trees are so angry they're trying to kill us. Of course, I am already dead.' He climbed to his feet, bits falling away here and there, and brushed sand and skin from his hands. 'Can we go now?'

'Yes,' said Master Quell, though his eyes were still a little wild. 'We're going back to Hood's realm and we're happy to take you with us.'

'Oh, no, I'm not going back there. It's not time.'

'Yes it is and yes you are,' said Master Quell.

'No it isn't and no I'm not. Hood issued a second command, one just to me. He said "Go" and so I did. It's not time. Until it is, I'm staying with you.'

'Everyone who rides the carriage,' Quell said in a growl, 'has to work for the privilege.'

'Yes, and I have begun.' And he gestured down at the coconut pyramids. 'You have netting bundled to the sides of the carriage, presumably to hold people on board. If we are to cross water, then we should place these nuts within said netting. As flotation devices, in case someone is washed overboard.' He made a heaving motion with his emaciated arms. 'With a line attached for retrieval.'

'That might work,' said Gruntle.

'Gods below,' Master Quell muttered. 'Fine, I'm not arguing with a dead man. Gruntle, draw your weapons. We're going now.'

'My weapons?'

'Just in case. And now, no more damned talking back!'

Quell fashioned a portal into Hood's warren that was but a thin, elongated slice, like a parting of curtains, from which cool lifeless breath gusted out, sweeping the sand into the air. Eyes stinging, Gruntle glanced back just before following the mage into the rent. And saw Amby and Jula wave.

They emerged on the summit of a hill, one of a long spine of hills, each one so similar to the next that they might be enormous barrows – although why there would be barrows in the realm