Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,960

them is impossible. Listen, we have a hurt man – bad hurt – who needs healing. We'll pay—'

'Sergeant—'

'Just Antsy these days, sir.'

'Antsy, I am so sorry, but I must refuse you—'

At that, Barathol came round the cart and marched up, his hands curling into fists for a moment, before loosening as he reached towards the huge axe slung across his back. But these gestures were instinctive – he was not even aware of them, and when he spoke it was in a tone of despairing fury. 'His skull is fractured! He'll die without healing – and I will not accept that!'

Baruk held up both hands. 'I was about to leave – I cannot delay any longer. Certain matters demand my immediate attention—'

'He needs—'

'I am sorry, Barathol.'

And the alchemist was backing through the gate once more. The panel clicked shut.

Antsy snatched and tugged at his moustache in agitation, and then reached out to restrain Barathol, who seemed about to kick down that door. 'Hold on, hold on – I got another idea. It's desperate, but I can't think of anything else. Come on, it's not far.'

Barathol was too distraught to say anything – he would grasp any hope, no matter how forlorn. Face ashen, he went back to the ox, and when Antsy set out, he and the ox and the cart bearing the body of Chaur followed.

In the stricken man's mind, few sparks remained. The black tide was very nearly done. Those flickers that knew themselves as Chaur had each lost touch with the others, and so wandered lost. But then, some of them had known only solitary existences throughout their lives – crucial sparks indeed – for ever blind to pathways that might have awakened countless possibilities.

Until one, drifting untethered, so strangely freed, now edged forward along a darkened path it had never before explored, and the track it burned remained vibrant in its wake. And then, in a sudden flaring, that spark found another of its kind.

Something stirred then, there in the midst of an inner world fast dying.

Awareness.

Recognition.

A tumbling complexity of thoughts, connections, relationships, meanings.

Flashing, stunned with its own existence, even as the blackness closed in on all sides.

Cutting down an alley away from Baruk's estate, Antsy, ten paces in the lead, stumbled suddenly on something. Swearing, he glanced back at the small object lying on the cobbles, and then bent down to collect it, stuffing the limp thing into his cloak.

He swore again, something about a stink, but what's a dead nose gonna know or care? And then he resumed walking.

They arrived at an estate that Barathol recognized. Coll's. And Antsy returned to help lead the suddenly uneasy ox down the side track, to that primordial thicket behind the garden wall. Beneath the branches the gloom was thick with flying moths, their wings a chorus of dry whispering. Fog crawled between the boles of twisted trees. The air was rich with a steamy, earthy smell.

Tears ran down Barathol's cheeks, soaked his beard. 'I told him to stay on the ship,' he said in a tight, distraught voice. 'He usually listens to me. He's not one to disobey, not Chaur. Was it Spite? Did she force him out?'

'What was he doing at the gaol?' Antsy asked, just to keep his friend talking for reasons even he could not explain. 'How did he even find it, unless someone led him there? It's all a damned mystery.'

'He saved my life,' said Barathol. 'He was coming to break me out – he had my axe. Chaur, you fool, why didn't you just leave it all alone?'

'He couldn't do that,' said Antsy.

'I know.'

They arrived at the edge of the clearing, halting just beyond a low, uneven stone wall almost buried beneath vines. The gateway was an arch of rough stone veined with black roots. The house beyond showed a blackened face.

'Let's do this, then,' said Antsy in a growl, coming round to the back of the cart. 'Before the ox bolts—'

'What are we doing?'

'We're carrying him up the path. Listen, Barathol, we got to stay on that path, you understand? Not one step off it, not one. Understand?'

'No—'

'This is the Finnest House, Barathol. It's an Azath.'

The ex-sergeant seemed to be standing within a cloud of rotting meat. Moths swarmed in a frenzy.

Confused, frightened, Barathol helped Antsy lift Chaur's body from the cart bed, and with the Falari in the lead and walking backwards – one tender step at a time – they made their way up the flagstone path.

'You know,' Antsy