“
They climbed out of the pit to find a banquet awaiting them. A long table, four high-backed Untan-style chairs, a candelabra in the centre bearing four thick-stemmed beeswax candles, the golden light flickering down on silver plates heaped with Malazan delicacies. Oily santos fish from the shoals off Kartool, baked with butter and spices in clay; strips of marinated venison, smelling of almonds in the northern D'avorian style; grouse from the Seti plains stuffed with bull-berries and sage; baked gourds and fillets of snake from Dal Hon; assorted braised vegetables and four bottles of wine: a Malaz Island white from the Paran Estates, warmed rice wine from Itko Kan, a fullbodied red from Gris, and the orange-tinted belack wine from the Napan Isles.
Kalam stood staring at the bounteous apparition, as Stormy, with a grunt, walked over, boots puffing in the dust, and sat down in one of the chairs, reaching for the Grisian red.
'Well,' Quick Ben said, dusting himself off, 'this is nice. Who's the fourth chair for, you think?'
Kalam looked up at the looming bulk of the sky keep. 'I'd rather not think about that.'
Snorting sounds from Stormy as he launched into the venison strips.
”
”