The Bonehunters

Bones in the Walls (stela fragment circa First Empire) Author unknown 'I can be this urn.'

'You don't want to be that urn.'

'It's got legs.'

'Stubby ones, and I don't think they move. They're just for show. I remember things like that.'

'But it's pretty.'

'And she pees in it.'

'Pees? Are you sure? Have you seen her pee in it?'

'Take a look, Curdle. That's her pee in it. You don't want to be that urn. You want something alive. Really alive, with legs that work. Or wings…'

They were still whispering when Apsalar removed the last bar in the window and set it down. She climbed onto the sill, twisting sideways to reach up to the nearest roof-post.

'Where are you going?' Telorast demanded.

'To the roof.'

'Shall we join you?'

'No.'

Apsalar pulled herself upward and moments later was crouched on the sun-baked clay, the stars glistening overhead. Dawn was not far off, and the city below was silent and motionless like a thing dead in the night. Ehrlitan. The first city they had come to in this land, the city where this particular journey had begun, a group fated to break apart beneath a host of burdens. Kalam Mekhar, Fiddler, Crokus and herself. Oh, Crokus had been so angry to discover that their companions had come with hidden motives – not just escorting her home, not just righting an old wrong. He had been so naive.

She wondered how he was faring, thought to ask Cotillion the next time the god visited, then decided she would not do so. It would not do to let herself continue to care about him; even to think on him, achieving little more than loosing the flood-gates of yearning, desire and regret.

Other, more immediate issues demanded her thought. Mebra. The old spy was dead, which was what Shadowthrone had wanted, although the why of it escaped Apsalar. Granted, Mebra had been working all sides, serving the Malazan Empire at one moment, Sha'ik's cause the next. And… someone else. That someone else's identity was important, and, she suspected, it was the true reason for Shadowthrone's decision.

The Nameless Ones? Had the Semk assassin been sent to cover a trail?

Possible, and it made sense. No witnesses, the man had said. To what?

What service could Mebra have provided the Nameless Ones? Hold off pursuing an answer to that. Who else?

Adherents to the old cult of Shadow in Seven Cities no doubt remained, survivors of the purges that had accompanied the conquest. Another possible employer of Mebra's many skills, and more likely to have caught Shadowthrone's attention, as well as his ire.

She had been told to kill Mebra. She had not been told why, nor had she been told to initiate any investigations on her own. Suggesting Shadowthrone felt he knew enough. The same for Cotillion. Or, conversely, they were both woefully ignorant, and Mebra had simply switched sides once too often.

There were more targets on her list, a random collection of names, all of which could be found in Cotillion's memories. She was expected simply to proceed from one to the next, with the final target the most challenging of all… but that one was in all likelihood months away, and she would need to do some deft manoeuvring to get close enough to strike, a slow, careful stalking of a very dangerous individual. For whom she felt no enmity.

This is what an assassin does. And Cotillion's possession has made me an assassin. That and nothing else. I have killed and will continue to kill. I need think of nothing else. It is simple. It should be simple.

And so she would make it so.

Still, what made a god decide to kill some lowly mortal? The minor irritation of a stone in a moccasin. The slap of a branch on a wooded trail. Who thinks twice plucking that stone out and tossing it away?

Or reaching out and snapping that branch? It seems I do, for I am that god's hand in this.

Enough. No more of this weakness… this… uncertainty. Complete the tasks, then walk away. Vanish. Find a new life.

Only… how does one do that?

There was someone she could ask – he was not far off, she knew, having culled his identity from Cotillion's memories.

She had moved to sit with her legs dangling on the roof's edge.

Someone now sat at her side.

'Well?' Cotillion asked.

'A Semk assassin of the Nameless Ones completed my mission for me.'

'This very night?'

'I met him, but was unable to question him.'

The god slowly nodded. 'The Nameless Ones again. This is unexpected.

And unwelcome.'

'So they were not the reason for killing Mebra.'