Among the founding families of Darujhistan, there is Nom.
The Noble Houses of Darujhistan
‘I MISSED YOU, KARSA ORLONG.’
Torvald Nom’s face was mottled blue and black, his right eye swollen shut. He had been chained to the wagon’s forward wall and was slouched down amidst rotting straw, watching as the Malazan soldiers levered the Teblor onto the bed using stripped-down saplings that had been inserted beneath the limbs of the huge, net-wrapped warrior. The wagon shifted and groaned as Karsa’s weight settled on it.
‘Pity the damned oxen,’ Shard said, dragging one of the saplings free, his breath harsh and his face red with exertion.
A second wagon stood nearby, just within the field of Karsa’s vision as he lay motionless on the weathered boards. In its back sat Silgar, Damisk, and three other Nathii lowlanders. The slavemaster’s face was white and patchy, the blue and gold trim of his expensive clothes stained and wrinkled. Seeing him, Karsa laughed.
Silgar’s head snapped around, dark eyes fixing like knives on the Uryd warrior.
‘Taker of slaves!’ Karsa sneered.
The Malazan soldier, Shard, climbed onto the wagon’s wall and leaned over to study Karsa for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘Ebron!’ he called out. ‘Come look. That web ain’t what it was.’
The sorcerer clambered up beside him. His eyes narrowed. ‘Hood take him,’ he muttered. ‘Get us some chains, Shard. Heavy ones, and lots of them. Tell the captain, too, and hurry.’
The soldier dropped out of sight.
Ebron scowled down at Karsa. ‘You got otataral in your veins? Nerruse knows, that spell should have killed you long ago. What’s it been, three days now. Failing that, the pain should have driven you mad. But you’re no madder than you were a week ago, are you?’ His scowl deepened. ‘There’s something about you… something…’
Soldiers were suddenly clambering up on all sides, some dragging chains whilst others held back slightly with crossbows cocked. ‘Can we touch this?’ one asked, hesitating over Karsa. ‘You can now,’ Ebron replied, then spat.
Karsa tested the magical constraints in a single, concerted surge that forced a bellow from his throat. Strands snapped. Answering shouts. Wild panic.
As the Uryd began dragging himself free, his sword still in his right hand, something hard cracked into the side of his head. Blackness swept over him.
He awoke lying on his back, spread-eagled on the bed of the wagon as it rocked and jolted beneath him. His limbs were wrapped in heavy chains that had been spiked to the boards. Others crisscrossed his chest and stomach. Dried blood crusted the left side of his face, sealing the lid of that eye. He could smell dust, wafting up from between the boards, as well as his own bile.
Torvald spoke from somewhere beyond Karsa’s head. ‘So you’re alive after all. Despite what the soldiers were saying, you looked pretty much dead to me. You certainly smell that way. Well, almost: In case you’re wondering, friend, it’s been six days. That gold-toothed sergeant hit you hard. Broke the shovel’s shaft.’
A sharp, throbbing pain bloomed in Karsa’s head as soon as he tried to lift it clear of the foul-smelling boards. He grimaced, settling once more. ‘Too many words, lowlander. Be quiet.’
‘Quiet’s not in my nature, alas. Of course, you don’t have to listen. Now, you might think otherwise, but we should be celebrating our good fortune. Prisoners of the Malazans is an improvement over being Silgar’s slaves. Granted, I might end up getting executed as a common criminal-which is, of course, precisely what I am-but more likely we’re both off to work in the imperial mines in Seven Cities. Never been there, but even so, it’s a long trip, land and sea. There might be pirates. Storms. Who knows? Might even be the mines aren’t so bad as people say. What’s a little digging? I can’t wait for the day they put a pickaxe in your hands-oh my, won’t you have some fun? Lots to look forward to, don’t you think?’
‘Including cutting out your tongue.’
‘Humour? Hood take me, I didn’t think you had it in you, Karsa Orlong. Anything else you want to say? Feel free.’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘We’ll reach Culvern Crossing by tonight-the pace has been torturously slow, thanks to you, since it appears you weigh more than you should, more even than Silgar and his four thugs. Ebron says you don’t have normal flesh-same for the Sunyd, of course-but with you it’s even more so. Purer blood, I suppose. Meaner blood, that’s for sure. I remember, once, in Darujhistan, I was just a lad, a troop arrived with a grey bear, all chained up. Had it in a huge tent just outside Worrytown, charged a sliver to see it. First day, I was there. The crowd was huge. Everyone’d thought grey bears had died out centuries ago-’
‘Then you are all fools,’ Karsa growled.
‘So we were, because there it was. Collared, chained down, with red in its eyes. The crowd rushed in, me in it, and that damned thing went wild. Broke loose like those chains were braids of grass. You wouldn’t believe the panic. I got trampled on, but managed to crawl out from under the tent with my scrawny but lovely body mostly intact. That bear-bodies were flying from its path. It charged straight for the Gadrobi Hills and was never seen again. Sure, there’s rumours to this day that the bastard’s still there, eating the occasional herder… and herd. Anyway, you remind me of that grey bear, Uryd. The same look in your eyes. A look that says: Chains will not hold me. And that’s what has me so eager to see what will happen next.’
‘I shall not hide in the hills, Torvald Nom.’
‘Didn’t think you would. Do you know how you will be loaded onto the prison ship? Shard told me. They’ll take the wheels off this wagon. That’s it. You’ll be riding this damned bed all the way to Seven Cities.’
The wagon’s wheels slid down into deep, stony ruts, the jarring motion sending waves of pain through Karsa’s head.
‘You still here?’ Torvald asked after a moment.
Karsa remained silent.
‘Oh well,’ the Daru sighed.
Lead me, Warleader.
Lead me.
This was not the world he had expected. The lowlanders were both weak and strong, in ways he found difficult to comprehend. He had seen huts built one atop another; he had seen watercraft the size of entire Teblor houses.
Expecting a farmstead, they had found a town. Anticipating the slaughter of fleeing cowards, they had instead been met with fierce opponents who stood their ground.
And Sunyd slaves. The most horrifying discovery of all. Teblor, their spirits broken. He had not thought such a thing was possible.
I shall snap those chains on the Sunyd. This, I vow before the Seven. I shall give the Sunyd lowlander slaves in turn-no. To do such would be as wrong as what the lowlanders have done to the Sunyd, have done, indeed, to their own kin. No, his sword’s gathering of souls was a far cleaner, a far purer deliverance.
He wondered about these Malazans. They were, it was clear, a tribe that was fundamentally different from the Nathii. Conquerors, it seemed, from a distant land. Holders to strict laws. Their captives not slaves, but prisoners, though it had begun to appear that the distinction lay in name only. He would be set to work.
Yet he had no desire to work. Thus, it was punishment, intended to bow his warrior spirit, to-in time-break it. In this, a fate to match that of the Sunyd.
But that shall not happen, for I am Uryd, not Sunyd. They shall have to kill me, once they realize that they cannot control me. And so, the truth is before me. Should I hasten that realization, I shall never see release from this wagon.
Torvald Nom spoke of patience-the prisoner’s code. Urugal, forgive me, for I must now avow to that code. I must seem to relent.
Even as he thought it, he knew it would not work. These Malazans were too clever. They would be fools to trust a sudden, inexplicable passivity. No, he needed to fashion a different kind of illusion.
Delum Thord. You shall now be my guide. Your loss is now my gift. You walked the path before me, showing me the steps. I shall awaken yet again, but it shall not be with a broken spirit, but with a broken mind.
Indeed, the Malazan sergeant had struck him hard. The muscles of his neck had seized, clenched tight around his spine. Even breathing triggered lancing stabs of pain. He sought to slow it, shifting his thoughts away from the low roar of his nerves.
The Teblor had lived in blindness for centuries, oblivious of the growing numbers-and growing threat-of the lowlanders. Borders, once defended with vicious determination, had for some reason been abandoned, left open to the poisoning influences from the south. It was important, Karsa realized, to discover the cause of this moral failing. The Sunyd had never been among the strongest of the tribes, yet they were Teblor none the less, and what befell them could, in time, befall all the others. This was a difficult truth, but to close one’s eyes to it would be to walk the same path yet again.
There were failings that must be faced. Pahlk, his own grandfather, had been something far less than the warrior of glorious deeds that he pretended to be. Had Pahlk returned to the tribe with truthful tales, then the warnings within them would have been heard. A slow but inexorable invasion was under way, one step at a time. A war on the Teblor that assailed their spirit as much as it did their lands. Perhaps such warnings would have proved sufficient to unite the tribes.
He considered this, and darkness settled upon his thoughts. No. Pahlk’s failing had been a deeper one; it was not his lies that were the greatest crime, it was his lack of courage, for he had shown himself unable to wrest free of the strictures binding the Teblor. His people’s rules of conduct, the narrowly crafted confines of expectations-its innate conservatism that crushed dissent with the threat of deadly isolation-these were what had defeated his grandfather’s courage.
Yet not, perhaps, my father’s.
The wagon jolted once more beneath him.
I saw your mistrust as weakness. Your unwillingness to participate in our tribe’s endless, deadly games of pride and retribution-I saw this as cowardice. Even so, what have you done to challenge our ways? Nothing. Your only answer was to hide yourself away-and to belittle all that I did, to mock my zeal…
Preparing me for this moment.
Very well, Father, I can see the gleam of satisfaction in your eyes, now. But I tell you this, you delivered naught but wounds upon your son. And I have had enough of wounds.
Urugal was with him. All the Seven were with him. Their power would make him impervious to all that besieged his Teblor spirit. He would, one day, return to his people, and he would shatter their rules. He would unite the Teblor, and they would march behind him… down into the lowlands.
Until that moment, all that came before-all that afflicted him now-was but preparation. He would be the weapon of retribution, and it was the enemy itself that now honed him.
Blindness curses both sides, it seems. Thus, the truth of my words shall be shown.
Such were his last thoughts before consciousness once more faded away.
Excited voices awoke him. It was dusk and the air was filled with the smell of horses, dust and spiced foods. The wagon was motionless under him, and he could now hear, mingled with the voices, the sounds of many people and a multitude of activities, underscored by the rush of a river.
‘Ah, awake once more,’ Torvald Nom said.
Karsa opened his eyes but did not otherwise move.
‘This is Culvern Crossing,’ the Daru went on, ‘and it’s a storm swirling with the latest news from the south. All right, a small storm, given the size of this latrine pit of a town. The scum of the Nathii, which is saying a lot. The Malazan company’s pretty excited, though. Pale’s just fallen, you see. A big battle, lots of sorcery, and Moon’s Spawn retreated-likely headed to Darujhistan, in fact. Beru take me, I wish I was there right now, watching it crossing the lake, what a sight that’d be. The company, of course, are wishing they’d been there for the battle. Idiots, but that’s soldiers for you-’
‘And why not?’ Shard’s voice snapped as the wagon rocked slightly and the man appeared. ‘The Ashok Regiment deserves better than to be stuck up here hunting bandits and slavers.’
‘The Ashok Regiment is you, I presume,’ Torvald said.
‘Aye. Damned veterans, too, one and all.’
‘So why aren’t you down south, Corporal?’
Shard made a face, then turned away with narrowed eyes. ‘She don’t trust us, that’s why,’ he murmured. ‘We’re Seven Cities, and the bitch don’t trust us.’
‘Excuse me,’ Torvald said, ‘but if she-and by that I take you to mean your Empress-doesn’t trust you, then why is she sending you home? Isn’t Seven Cities supposedly on the edge of rebellion? If there’s a chance of you turning renegade, wouldn’t she rather have you here on Genabackis?’
Shard stared down at Torvald Nom. ‘Why am I talking to you, thief? You might damn well be one of her spies. A Claw, for all I know.’
‘If I am, Corporal, you haven’t been treating me very well. A detail I’d be sure to put in my report-this secret one, the one I’m secretly writing, that is. Shard, wasn’t it? As in a piece of broken glass, yes? And you called the Empress “bitch”-’
‘Shut up,’ the Malazan snarled.
‘Just making a rather obvious point, Corporal.’
‘That’s what you think,’ Shard sneered as he dropped back down from the side of the wagon and was lost from sight.
Torvald Nom said nothing for a long moment, then, ‘Karsa Orlong, do you have any idea what that man meant by that last statement?’
Karsa spoke in a low voice, ‘Torvald Nom, listen well. A warrior who followed me, Delum Thord, was struck on the head. His skull cracked and leaked thought-blood. His mind could not walk back up the path. He was left helpless, harmless. I, too, have been struck on the head. My skull is cracked and I have leaked thought-blood-’
‘Actually, it was drool-’
‘Be quiet. Listen. And answer, when you will, in a whisper. I have awakened now, twice, and you have observed-’
Torvald interjected in a soft murmur. ‘That your mind’s lost on the trail or something. Is that what I have observed? You babble meaningless words, sing childhood songs and the like. All right, fine. I’ll play along, on one condition.’
‘What condition?’
‘That whenever you manage to escape, you free me as well. A small thing, you might think, but I assure you-’
‘Very well. I, Karsa Orlong of the Uryd, give my word.’
‘Good. I like the formality of that vow. Sounds like it’s real.’
‘It is. Do not mock me, else I kill you once I have freed you.’
‘Ah, now I see the hidden caveat. I must twist another vow from you, alas-’
The Teblor growled with impatience, then relented and said, ‘I, Karsa Orlong, shall not kill you once I have freed you, unless given cause.’
‘Explain the nature of those causes-’
‘Are all Daru like you?’
‘It needn’t be an exhaustive list. “Cause” being, say, attempted murder, betrayal, and mockery of course. Can you think of any others?’
‘Talking too much.’
‘Well, with that one we’re getting into very grey, very murky shades, don’t you think? It’s a matter of cultural distinctions-’
‘I believe Darujhistan shall be the first city I conquer-’
‘I’ve a feeling the Malazans will get there first, I’m afraid. Mind you, my beloved city has never been conquered, despite its being too cheap to hire a standing army. The gods not only look down on Darujhistan with a protective eye, they probably drink in its taverns. In any case-oh, shhh, someone’s coming.’
Bootsteps neared, then, as Karsa watched through slitted eyes, Sergeant Cord clambered up into view and glared for a long moment at Torvald Nom. ‘You sure don’t look like a Claw…’ he finally said. ‘But maybe that’s the whole point.’
‘Perhaps it is.’
Cord’s head began turning towards Karsa and the Teblor closed his eyes completely. ‘He come around yet?’
‘Twice. Doing nothing but drooling and making animal sounds. I think you went and damaged his brain, assuming he has one.’
Cord grunted. ‘Might prove a good thing, so long as he doesn’t die on us. Now, where was I?’
‘Torvald Nom, the Claw.’
‘Right. OK. Even so, we’re still treating you as a bandit-until you prove to us you’re something otherwise-and so you’re off to the otataral mines with everyone else. Meaning, if you are a Claw, you’d better announce it before we leave Genabaris.’
‘Assuming, of course,’ Torvald smiled, ‘my assignment does not require me to assume the disguise of a prisoner in the otataral mines.’
Cord frowned, then, hissing a curse, he dropped down from the side of the wagon.
They heard him shout, ‘Get this damned wagon on that ferry! Now!’
The wheels creaked into sudden motion, the oxen lowing.
Torvald Nom sighed, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes.
‘You play a deadly game,’ Karsa muttered.
The Daru propped one eye open. ‘A game, Teblor? Indeed, but maybe not the game you think.’
Karsa grunted his disgust.
‘Be not so quick to dismiss-’
‘I am,’ the warrior replied, as the oxen dragged the wagon onto a ramp of wooden boards. ‘My causes shall be “attempted murder, betrayal, mockery, and being one of these Claws”.’
‘And talking too much?’
‘It seems I shall have to suffer that curse.’
Torvald slowly cocked his head, then he grinned. ‘Agreed.’
In a strange way, the discipline of maintaining the illusion of mindlessness proved Karsa’s greatest ally in remaining sane. Days, then weeks lying supine, spread-eagled and chained down to the bed of a wagon was a torture unlike anything the Teblor could have imagined possible. Vermin crawled all over his body, covering him in bites that itched incessantly. He knew of large animals of the deep forest being driven mad by blackflies and midges, and now he understood how such an event could occur.
He was washed down with buckets of icy water at the end of each day, and was fed by the drover guiding the wagon, an ancient foul-smelling Nathii who would crouch down beside his head with a smoke-blackened iron pot filled with some kind of thick, seed-filled stew. He used a large wooden spoon to pour the scalding, malty cereal and stringy meat into Karsa’s mouth-the Teblor’s lips, tongue and the insides of his cheeks were terribly blistered, the feedings coming too often to allow for healing.
Meals became an ordeal, which was alleviated only when Torvald Nom talked the drover into permitting the Daru to take over the task, ensuring that the stew had cooled sufficiently before it was poured into Karsa’s mouth. The blisters were gone within a few days.
The Teblor endeavoured to keep his muscles fit through sessions, late at night, of flexing and unflexing, but all his joints ached from immobility, and for this he could do nothing.
At times, his discipline wavered, his thoughts travelling back to the demon he and his comrades had freed. That woman, the Forkassal, had spent an unimaginable length of time pinned beneath that massive stone. She had managed to achieve some movement, had no doubt clung to some protracted sense of progress as she clawed and scratched against the stone. Even so, Karsa could not comprehend her ability to withstand madness and the eventual death that was its conclusion.
Thoughts of her left him humbled, his spirit weakened by his own growing frailty in these chains, in the wagon bed’s rough-hewn planks that had rubbed his skin raw, in the shame of his soiled clothes, and the simple, unbearable torment of the lice and fleas.
Torvald took to talking to him as he would a child, or a pet. Calming words, soothing tones, and the curse of talking too much was transformed into something Karsa could hold on to, his desperate grip ever tightening.
The words fed him, kept his spirit from starving. They measured the cycle of days and nights that passed, they taught him the language of the Malazans, they gave him an account of the places they travelled through. After Culvern Crossing, there had been a larger town, Ninsano Moat, where crowds of children had clambered onto the wagon, poking and prodding him until Shard arrived to drive them away. Another river had been crossed there. Onward to Malybridge, a town of similar proportions to Ninsano Moat, then, seventeen days later, Karsa stared up at the arched stone gateway of a city-Tanys-passing over him, and on either side, as the wagon made its rocking way down a cobbled street, huge buildings of three, even four levels. And all around, the sounds of people, more lowlanders than Karsa had thought possible.
Tanys was a port, resting on tiered ridges rising from the east shore of the Malyn Sea, where the water was brackish with salt-such as was found in a number of springs near the Rathyd borderlands. Yet the Malyn Sea was no turgid, tiny pool; it was vast, for the journey across it to the city called Malyntaeas consumed four days and three nights.
It was the transferring onto the ship that resulted in Karsa’s being lifted upright-unwheeled wagon bed included-for the first time, creating a new kind of torture as the chains took his full weight. His joints screamed within him and gave voice as Karsa’s shrieks filled the air, continuing without surcease until someone poured a fiery, burning liquid down his throat, enough to fill his stomach, after which his mind sank away.
When he awoke he found that the platform that held him remained upright, strapped to what Torvald called the main mast. The Daru had been chained nearby, having assumed the responsibility for Karsa’s care.
The ship’s healer had rubbed salves into Karsa’s swollen joints, deadening the pain. But a new agony had arrived, raging behind his eyes.
‘Hurting?’ Torvald Nom murmured. ‘That’s called a hangover, friend. A whole bladder of rum was poured into you, lucky bastard that you are. You heaved half of it back up, of course, but it had sufficiently worsened in the interval to enable me to refrain from licking the deck, leaving my dignity intact. Now, we both need some shade or we’ll end up fevered and raving-and believe me, you’ve done enough raving for both of us already. Fortunately in your Teblor tongue, which few if any aboard understand. Aye, we’ve parted ways with Captain Kindly and his soldiers, for the moment. They’re crossing on another ship. By the way, who is Dayliss? No, don’t tell me. You’ve made quite a list of rather horrible things you’ve got planned for this Dayliss, whoever he or she is. Anyway, you should have your sea-legs by the time we dock in Malyntaeas, which should prepare you somewhat for the horrors of Meningalle Ocean. I hope.
‘Hungry?’
The crew, mostly Malazans, gave Karsa’s position wide berth. The other prisoners had been locked below, but the wagon bed had proved too large for the cargo hatch, and Captain Kindly had been firm on his instructions not to release Karsa, in any circumstances, despite his apparent feeble-mindedness. Not a sign of scepticism, Torvald had explained in a whisper, just the captain’s legendary sense of caution, which was reputedly extreme even for a soldier. The illusion seemed to have, in fact, succeeded-Karsa had been bludgeoned into a harmless ox, devoid of any glimmer of intelligence in his dull eyes, his endless, ghastly smile evincing permanent incomprehension. A giant, once warrior, now less than a child, comforted only by the shackled bandit, Torvald Nom, and his incessant chatter.
‘Eventually, they’ll have to unchain you from that wagon bed,’ the Daru once muttered in the darkness as the ship rolled on towards Malyntaeas. ‘But maybe not until we arrive at the mines. You’ll just have to hold on, Karsa Orlong-assuming you’re still pretending you’ve lost your mind, and these days I admit you’ve got even me convinced. You are still sane, aren’t you?’
Karsa voiced a soft grunt, though at times he himself was unsure. Some days had been lost entirely, simply blank patches in his memory-more frightening than anything else he’d yet to experience. Hold on? He did not know if he could.
The city of Malyntaeas had the appearance of having been three separate cities at one time. It was midday when the ship drew into the harbour, and from his position against the main mast Karsa’s view was mostly unobstructed. Three enormous stone fortifications commanded three distinct rises in the land, the centre one set back further from the shoreline than the other two. Each possessed its own peculiar style of architecture. The keep to the left was squat, robust and unimaginative, built of a golden, almost orange limestone that looked marred and stained in the sunlight. The centre fortification, hazy through the woodsmoke rising from the maze of streets and houses filling the lower tiers between the hills, appeared older, more decrepit, and had been painted-walls, domes and towers-in a faded red wash. The fortification on the right was built on the very edge of the coastal cliff, the sea below roiling amidst tumbled rocks and boulders, the cliff itself rotted, pock-marked and battle-scarred. Ship-launched projectiles had battered the keep’s sloped walls at some time in the past; deep cracks radiated from the wounds, and one of the square towers had slumped and shifted and now leaned precariously outward. Yet a row of pennants fluttered beyond the wall.
Around each keep, down the slopes and in the flat, lowest stretches, buildings crowded every available space, mimicking its particular style. Borders were marked by wide streets, winding inland, where one style faced the other down their crooked lengths.
Three tribes had settled here, Karsa concluded as the ship eased its way through the crowds of fisherboats and traders in the bay.
Torvald Nom rose to his feet in a rustle of chains, scratching vigorously at his snarled beard. His eyes glittered as he gazed at the city. ‘Malyntaeas,’ he sighed. ‘Nathii, Genabarii and Korhivi, side by side by side. And what keeps them from each other’s throats? Naught but the Malazan overlord and three companies from the Ashok Regiment. See that half-ruined keep over there, Karsa? That’s from the war between the Nathii and the Korhivi. The whole Nathii fleet filled this bay, flinging stones at the walls, and they were so busy with trying to kill each other that they didn’t even notice when the Malazan forces arrived. Dujek Onearm, three legions from the 2nd, the Bridgeburners, and two High Mages. That’s all Dujek had, and by day’s end the Nathii fleet was on the bay’s muddy bottom, the Genabarii royal line holed up in their blood-red castle were all dead, and the Korhivi keep had capitulated.’
The ship was approaching a berth alongside a broad, stone pier, sailors scampering about on all sides.
Torvald was smiling. ‘All well and good, you might be thinking. The forceful imposition of peace and all that. Only, the city’s Fist is about to lose two of his three companies. Granted, replacements are supposedly on the way. But when? From where? How many? See what happens, my dear Teblor, when your tribe gets too big? Suddenly, the simplest things become ungainly, unmanageable. Confusion seeps in like fog, and everyone gropes blind and dumb.’
A voice cackled from slightly behind and to Karsa’s left. A bandy legged, bald officer stepped into view, his eyes on the berth closing ahead, a sour grin twisting his mouth. In Nathii, he said, ‘The bandit chief pontificates on politics, speaking from experience no doubt, what with having to manage a dozen unruly highwaymen. And why are you telling this brainless fool, anyway? Ah, of course, a captive and uncomplaining audience.’
‘Well, there is that,’ Torvald conceded. ‘You are the First Mate? I was wondering, sir, about how long we’d be staying here in Malyntaeas-’
‘You were wondering, were you? Fine, allow me to explain the course of events for the next day or two. One. No prisoners leave this ship. Two. We pick up six squads of the 2nd Company. Three, we sail on to Genabaris. You’re then shipped off and I’m done with you.’
‘I sense a certain unease in you, sir,’ Torvald said. ‘Have you security concerns regarding fair Malyntaeas?’
The man’s head slowly turned. He regarded the Daru for a moment, then grunted. ‘You’re the one might be a Claw. Well, if you are, add this to your damned report. There’s Crimson Guard in Malyntaeas, stirring up the Korhivi. The shadows ain’t safe, and it’s getting so bad that the patrols don’t go anywhere unless there’s two squads at the minimum. And now two-thirds of them are being sent home. The situation in Malyntaeas is about to get very unsettled.’
‘The Empress would certainly be remiss to discount the opinions of her officers,’ Torvald replied.
The First Mate’s eyes narrowed. ‘She would at that.’
He then strode ahead, bellowing at a small group of sailors who’d run out of things to do.
Torvald tugged at his beard, glanced over at Karsa and winked. ‘Crimson Guard. That’s troubling indeed. For the Malazans, that is.’
Days vanished. Karsa became aware once again as the wagon bed pitched wildly under him. His joints were afire, as his weight was shifted, chains snapping taut to jolt his limbs. He was being wheeled through the air, suspended from a pulley beneath a creaking framework of beams. Ropes whipped about, voices shouting from below. Overhead, seagulls glided above masts and rigging. Figures clung to that rigging, staring down at the Teblor.
The pulley squealed, and Karsa watched the sailors get smaller. Hands gripped the bed’s edges on all sides, steadying it. The end nearest his feet dropped further, drawing him slowly upright.
He saw before him the mid- and foredecks of a huge ship, over which swarmed haulers and stevedores, sailors and soldiers. Supplies were piled everywhere, the bundles being shifted below decks through gaping hatches.
The bed’s bottom end scraped the deck. Shouts, a flurry of activity, and the Teblor felt the bed lifted slightly, swinging free once more, then it was lowered again, and this time Karsa could both hear and feel the top edge thump against the main mast. Ropes were drawn through chains to bind the platform in place. Workers stepped away, then, staring up at Karsa.
Who smiled.
Torvald’s voice came from one side, ‘Aye, it’s a ghastly smile, but he’s harmless, I assure you all. No need for concern, unless of course you happen to be a superstitious lot-’
There was a solid crack and Torvald Nom’s body sprawled down in front of Karsa. Blood poured from his shattered nose. The Daru blinked stupidly, but made no move to rise. A large figure strode to stand over Torvald. Not tall, but wide, and his skin was dusky blue. He glared down at the bandit chief, then studied the ring of silent sailors facing him.
‘It’s called sticking the knife in and twisting,’ he growled in Malazan. ‘And he got every damned one of you.’ He turned and studied Torvald Nom once more. ‘Another stab like that one, prisoner, and I’ll see your tongue cut out and nailed to the mast. And if there’s any other kind of trouble from you or this giant here, I’ll chain you up there beside him then toss the whole damned thing overboard. Nod if you understand me.’
Wiping the blood from his face, Torvald Nom jerked his head in assent.
The blue-skinned man swung his hard gaze up to Karsa. ‘Wipe that smile off your face or a knife will kiss it,’ he said. ‘You don’t need lips to eat and the other miners won’t care either way.’
Karsa’s empty smile remained fixed.
The man’s face darkened. ‘You heard me…’
Torvald raised a hesitant hand, ‘Captain, sir, if you will. He does not understand you-his brain is addled.’
‘Bosun!’
‘Sir!’
‘Gag the bastard.’
‘Aye, Captain.’
A salt-crusted rag was quickly wrapped about Karsa’s lower face, making it difficult to breathe.
‘Don’t suffocate him, you idiots.’
‘Aye, sir.’
The knots were loosened, the cloth pulled down to beneath his nose.
The captain wheeled. ‘Now, what in Mael’s name are you all standing around for?’
As the workers all scattered, the captain thumping away, Torvald slowly climbed to his feet. ‘Sorry, Karsa,’ he mumbled through split lips. ‘I’ll get that off you, I promise. It may take a little time, alas. And when I do, friend, please, don’t be smiling…’
Why have you come to me, Karsa Orlong, son of Synyg, grandson of Pahlk?
One presence, and six. Faces that might have been carved from rock, barely visible through a swirling haze. One, and six.
‘I am before you, Urugal,’ Karsa said, a truth that left him confused.
You are not. Only your mind, Karsa Orlong. It has fled your mortal prison.
‘Then, I have failed you, Urugal.’
Failed. Yes. You have abandoned us and so in turn we must abandon you. We must seek another, one of greater strength. One who does not accept surrender. One who does not flee. In you, Karsa Orlong, our faith was misplaced.
The haze thickened, dull colours flashing through it. He found himself standing atop a hill that shifted and crunched beneath him. Chains stretched out from his wrists, down the slopes on all sides. Hundreds of chains, reaching out into the rainbow mists, and at the unseen ends of each one, there was movement. Looking down, Karsa saw bones beneath his feet. Teblor. Lowlander. The entire hill was naught but bones.
The chains slackened suddenly.
Movement in the mists, drawing closer from every direction.
Terror surged through Karsa.
Corpses, many of them headless, staggered into view. The chains that held the horrifying creatures to Karsa penetrated their chests through gaping holes. Withered, long-nailed hands reached towards him. Stumbling on the slopes, the apparitions began climbing.
Karsa struggled, seeking to flee, but he was surrounded. The very bones at his feet held him fast, clattering and shifting tighter about his ankles.
A hiss, a susurration of voices through rotting throats. ‘Lead us, Warleader.’
He shrieked.
‘Lead us, Warleader.’
Climbing closer, arms reaching up, nails clawing the air-
A hand closed about his ankle.
Karsa’s head snapped back, struck wood with a resounding crunch. He gulped air that slid like sand down his throat, choking him. Eyes opening, he saw before him the gently pitching decks of the ship, figures standing motionless, staring at him.
He coughed behind his gag, each convulsion a rage of fire in his lungs. His throat felt torn, and he realized that he had been screaming. Enough to spasm his muscles so they now clenched tight, cutting off the flow of his air passages.
He was dying.
The whisper of a voice deep in his mind: Perhaps we will not abandon you, yet. Breathe, Karsa Orlong. Unless, of course, you wish to once more meet your dead.
Breathe.
Someone snatched the gag from his mouth. Cold air flooded his lungs.
Through watering eyes, Karsa stared down at Torvald Nom. The Daru was barely recognizable, so dark was his skin, so thick and matted his beard. He had used the very chains holding Karsa to climb up within reach of the gag, and was now shouting unintelligible words the Teblor barely heard-words flung back at the frozen, fear-stricken Malazans.
Karsa’s eyes finally made note of the sky beyond the ship’s prow. There were colours there, amidst churning clouds, flashing and blossoming, swirls bleeding out from what seemed huge, open wounds. The storm-if that was what it was-commanded the entire sky ahead. And then he saw the chains, snapping down through the clouds to crack thunderously on the horizon. Hundreds of chains, impossibly huge, black, whipping in the air with explosions of red dust, crisscrossing the sky. Horror filled his soul.
There was no wind. The sails hung limp. The ship lolled on lazy, turgid seas. And the storm was coming.
A sailor approached with a tin cup filled with water, lifted it up to Torvald, who took it and brought it to Karsa’s scabbed, crusted lips. The brackish liquid entered his mouth, burning like acid. He drew his head away from the cup.
Torvald was speaking in low tones, words that slowly grew comprehensible to Karsa. ‘… long lost to us. Only your beating heart and the rise and fall of your chest told us you still lived. It has been weeks and weeks, my friend. You’d keep hardly anything down. There’s almost nothing left of you-you’re showing bones where no bones should be.
‘And then this damned becalming. Day after day. Not a cloud in the sky… until three bells past. Three bells, when you stirred, Karsa Orlong. When you tilted your head back and began screaming behind your gag. Here, more water-you must drink.
‘Karsa, they’re saying you’ve called this storm. Do you understand? They want you to send it away-they’ll do anything, they’ll unchain you, set you free. Anything, friend, anything at all-just send this unholy storm away. Do you understand?’
Ahead, he could see now, the seas were exploding with each lash of the black, monstrous chains, twisting spouts of water skyward as each chain retreated upward once more. The billowing, heaving clouds seemed to lean forward over the ocean, closing on their position from all sides now.
Karsa saw the Malazan captain descend from the foredeck, the blue-tinged skin on his face a sickly greyish hue. ‘This is no Mael-blessed squall, Daru, meaning it don’t belong.’ He jerked a trembling finger at Karsa. ‘Tell him he’s running out of time. Tell him to send it away. Once he does that, we can negotiate. Tell him, damn you!’
‘I have been, Captain!’ Torvald retorted. ‘But how in Hood’s name do you expect him to send anything away when I’m not even sure he knows where he is? Worse, we don’t even know for sure if he’s responsible!’
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ The captain spun round, gestured. A score of crewmen rushed forward, axes in hand.
Torvald was dragged down and thrown to the deck.
The axes chopped through the heavy ropes binding the platform to the mast. More crew came forward then. A ramp was laid out, angled up to the starboard gunnel. Log rollers were positioned beneath the platform as it was roughly lowered.
‘Wait!’ Torvald cried out. ‘You can’t-’
‘We can,’ the captain growled.
‘At least unchain him!’
‘Not a chance, Torvald.’ The captain grabbed a passing sailor by the arm. ‘Find everything this giant owned-all that stuff confiscated from the slavemaster. It’s all going with him. Hurry, damn you!’
Chains ripped the seas on all sides close enough to lift spray over the ship, each detonation causing hull, masts and rigging to tremble.
Karsa stared up at the tumbling stormclouds as the platform was dragged along the rollers, up the ramp.
‘Those chains will sink it!’ Torvald said.
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘What if it lands wrong way up?’
‘Then he drowns, and Mael can have him.’
‘Karsa! Damn you! Cease playing your game of mindlessness! Say something!’
The warrior croaked out two words, but the noise that came from his lips was unintelligible even to him.
‘What did he say?’ the captain demanded.
‘I don’t know!’ Torvald screamed. ‘Karsa, damn you, try again!’
He did, yielding the same guttural noise. He began repeating the same two words, over and over again, as the sailors pushed and pulled the platform up onto the gunnel until it was balanced precariously, half over the deck, half over the sea.
Directly above them, as he uttered his two words once more, Karsa watched the last patch of clear sky vanish, like the closing of a tunnel mouth. A sudden plunge into darkness, and Karsa knew it was too late, even as, in the sudden terror-stricken silence, his words came out clear and audible.
‘Go away.’
From overhead, chains snapped down, massive, plunging, reaching directly for-it seemed-Karsa’s own chest.
A blinding flash, a detonation, the splintering crackle of masts toppling, spars and rigging crashing down. The entire ship was falling away beneath Karsa, beneath the platform itself, which slid wildly down the length of the gunnel before crunching against the foredeck railing, pivoting, then plunging for the waves below.
He stared down at the water’s sickly green, heaving surface.
The entire platform shuddered in its fall as the cargo ship’s hull rolled up and struck its edge.
Karsa caught an upside-down glimpse of the ship-its deck torn open by the impact of the huge chains, its three masts gone, the twisted forms of sailors visible in the wreckage-then he was staring up at the sky, at a virulent, massive wound directly overhead.
A fierce impact, then darkness.
His eyes opened to a faint gloom, the desultory lap of waves, the sodden boards beneath him creaking as the platform rocked to someone else’s movement. Thumps; low, gasping mutters.
The Teblor groaned. The joints of every limb felt torn inside.
‘Karsa?’ Torvald Nom crawled into view.
‘What-what has happened?’
The shackles remained on the Daru’s wrists, the chains connected on the other end to arm-length, roughly broken fragments of the deck. ‘Easy for you, sleeping through all the hard work,’ he grumbled as he moved into a sitting position, pulling his arms around his knees. ‘This sea’s a lot colder than you’d think, and these chains didn’t help. I’ve nearly drowned a dozen times, but you’ll be glad to know we now have three water casks and a bundle of something that might be food-I’ve yet to untie its bindings. Oh, and your sword and armour, both of which float, of course.’
The sky overhead looked unnatural, luminous grey shot through with streaks of darker pewter, and the water smelled of clay and silts. ‘Where are we?’
‘I was hoping you’d know. It’s pretty damned clear to me that you called that storm down on us. That’s the only explanation for what happened-’
‘I called nothing.’
‘Those chains of lightning, Karsa-not one missed its target. Not a single Malazan was left standing. The ship was falling apart-your platform had landed right-side up and was drifting away. I was still working free when Silgar and three of his men climbed out of the hold, dragging their chains with them-the hull was riven through, coming apart all around the bastards. Only one had drowned.’
‘I am surprised they didn’t kill us.’
‘You were out of reach, at least to start with. Me, they threw overboard. A short while later, after I’d made it to this platform, I saw them in the lone surviving dory. They were rounding the sinking wreck, and I knew they were coming for us. Then, somewhere on the other side of the ship, beyond my sight, something must have happened, because they never reappeared. They vanished, dory and all. The ship then went down, though a lot of stuff has been coming back up. So, I’ve been resupplying. Collecting rope and wood, too-everything I could drag over here. Karsa, your platform is slowly sinking. None of the water casks are full, so that’s added some buoyancy, and I’ll be slipping more planks and boards under it, which should help. Even so…’
‘Break my chains, Torvald Nom.’
The Daru nodded, then ran a hand through his dripping, tangled hair. ‘I’ve checked on that, friend. It will take some work.’
‘Is there land about?’
Torvald glanced over at the Teblor. ‘Karsa, this isn’t the Meningalle Ocean. We’re somewhere else. Is there land nearby? None in sight. I overheard Silgar talking about a warren, which is one of those paths a sorcerer uses. He said he thought we’d all entered one. There may be no land here. None at all. Hood knows there’s no wind and we don’t seem to be moving in any direction-the wreckage of the ship is still all around us. In fact, it almost pulled us under with it. Also, this sea is fresh water-no, I wouldn’t want to drink it. It’s full of silt. No fish. No birds. No signs of life anywhere.’
‘I need water. Food.’
Torvald crawled over to the wrapped bundle he had retrieved. ‘Water, we have. Food? No guarantees. Karsa, did you call upon your gods or something?’
‘No.’
‘What started you screaming like that, then?’
‘A dream.’
‘A dream?’
‘Yes. Is there food?’
‘Uh, I’m not sure, it’s mostly padding… around a small wooden box.’
Karsa listened to ripping sounds as Torvald pulled away the padding. ‘There’s a mark branded on it. Looks… Moranth, I think.’ The lid was pried free. ‘More padding, and a dozen clay balls… with wax plugs on them-oh, Beru fend-’ The Daru backed away from the package. ‘Hood’s dripping tongue. I think I know what these are. Never seen one, but I’ve heard about them-who hasn’t? Well…’ He laughed suddenly. ‘If Silgar reappears and comes after us, he’s in for a surprise. So’s anyone else who might mean trouble.’ He edged forward again and carefully replaced the padding, then the lid.
‘What have you found?’
‘Alchemical munitions. Weapons of war. You throw them, preferably as far as you can. The clay breaks and the chemicals within explode. What you don’t want to happen is have one break in your hand, or at your feet. Because then you’re dead. The Malazans have been using these in the Genabackan campaign.’
‘Water, please.’
‘Right. There’s a ladle here… somewhere… found it.’
A moment later Torvald hovered over Karsa, and the Teblor drank, slowly, all the water the ladle contained.
‘Better?’
‘Yes.’
‘More?’
‘Not yet. Free me.’
‘I need to get back into the water first, Karsa. I need to push some planks under this raft.’
‘Very well.’
There seemed to be no day and no night in this strange place; the sky shifted hue occasionally, as if jostled by high, remote winds, the streaks of pewter twisting and stretching, but there was no change otherwise. The air surrounding the raft remained motionless, damp and cool and strangely thick.
The flanges anchoring Karsa’s chains were on the underside, holding him in place in a fashion identical to that in the slave trench at Silver Lake. The shackles themselves had been welded shut. Torvald’s only recourse was to attempt to widen the holes in the planks where the chains went through, using an iron buckle to dig at the wood.
Months of imprisonment had left him weakened, forcing frequent rests, and the buckle made a bloody mess of his hands, but once begun the Daru would not relent. Karsa measured the passing of time by the rhythmic crunching and scraping sounds, noting how each pause to rest stretched longer, until Torvald’s breathing told him the Daru had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Then, the Teblor’s only company was the sullen lap of water as it slipped back and forth across the platform.
For all the wood positioned beneath it, the raft was still sinking, and Karsa knew that Torvald would not be able to free him in time.
He had never before feared death. But now, he knew that Urugal and the other Faces in the Rock would abandon his soul, would leave it to the hungry vengeance of those thousands of ghastly corpses. He knew his dream had revealed to him a fate that was real, and inevitable. And inexplicable. Who had set such horrid creatures upon him? Undead Teblor, undead lowlander, warrior and child, an army of corpses, all chained to him. Why?
Lead us, Warleader.
Where?
And now, he would drown. Here, in this unknown place, far from his village. His claims to glory, his vows, all now mocking him, whispering a chorus of muted creaks, soft groans…
‘Torvald.’
‘Uh… what? What is it?’
‘I hear new sounds-’
The Daru sat up, blinking crusted silt from his eyes. He looked around. ‘Beru fend!’
‘What do you see?’
The Daru’s gaze was fixed on something beyond Karsa’s head. ‘Well, it seems there’s currents here after all, though which of us has done the moving? Ships, Karsa. A score or more of them, all dead in the water, like us. Floating wrecks. No movement on them… that I can see as yet. Looks like there was a battle. With plenty of sorcery being flung back and forth…’
Some indiscernible shift drew the ghostly flotilla into Karsa’s view, an image on its side to his right. There were two distinct styles of craft. Twenty or so were low and sleek, the wood stained mostly black, though where impacts and collisions and other damage had occurred the cedar’s natural red showed like gaping wounds. Many of these ships sat low in the water, a few with their decks awash. They were single-masted, square-sailed, the torn and shredded sails also black, shimmering in the pellucid light. The remaining six ships were larger, high-decked and three-masted. They had been fashioned from a wood that was true black-not stained-as was evinced from the gashes and splintered planks marring the broad, bellied hulls. Not one of these latter ships sat level in the water; all leaned one way or the other, two of them at very steep angles.
‘We should board a few,’ Torvald said. ‘There will be tools, maybe even weapons. I could swim over-there, that raider. It’s not yet awash, and I see lots of wreckage.’
Karsa sensed the Daru’s hesitation. ‘What is wrong? Swim.’
‘Uh, I am a little concerned, friend. I seem to have not much strength left, and these chains on me…’
The Teblor said nothing for a moment, then he grunted. ‘So be it. No more can be asked of you, Torvald Nom.’
The Daru slowly turned to regard Karsa. ‘Compassion, Karsa Orlong? Is it helplessness that has brought you to this?’
‘Too many empty words from you, lowlander,’ the Teblor sighed. ‘There are no gifts that come from being-’
A soft splash sounded, then sputtering and thrashing-the sputtering turning into laughter. Torvald, now alongside the raft, moved into Karsa’s line of sight. ‘Now we know why those ships are canted so!’ And the Teblor saw that Torvald was standing, the water lapping around his upper chest. ‘I can drag us over, now. This also tells us we’re the ones who’ve been drifting. And there’s something else.’
‘What?’
The Daru had begun pulling the raft along, using Karsa’s chains. ‘These ships all grounded during the battle-I think a lot of the hand to hand fighting was actually between ships, chest-deep in water.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Because there’s bodies all around me, Karsa Orlong. Against my shins, rolling about on the sands-it’s an unpleasant feeling, let me tell you.’
‘Pull one up. Let us see these combatants.’
‘All in good time, Teblor. We’re almost there. Also, these bodies, they’re, uh, rather soft. We might find something more recognizable if there’s any on the ship itself. Here’-there was a bump-‘we’re alongside. A moment, while I climb aboard.’
Karsa listened to the Daru’s grunts and gasps, the slipping scrabble of his bare feet, the rustle of chains, finally followed by a muted thud.
Then silence.
‘Torvald Nom?’
Nothing.
The raft’s end beyond Karsa’s head bumped alongside the raider’s hull, then began drifting along it. Cool water flowed across the surface, and Karsa recoiled at the contact, but could do nothing as it seeped beneath him. ‘Torvald Nom!’ His voice strangely echoed. No reply.
Laughter rumbled from Karsa, a sound oddly disconnected from the Teblor’s own will. In water that, had he been able to stand, would likely rise no higher than his hips, he would drown. Assuming there would be time for that. Perhaps Torvald Nom had been slain-it would be a bizarre battle if there had been no survivors-and even now, beyond his sight, the Teblor was being looked down upon, his fate hanging in the balance.
The raft edged near the ship’s prow. A scuffling sound, then, ‘Where? Oh.’
‘Torvald Nom?’
Footsteps, half-stumbling, moved alongside from the ship’s deck. ‘Sorry, friend. I think I must have passed out. Were you laughing a moment ago?’
‘I was. What have you found?’
‘Not much. Yet. Bloodstains-dried. Trails through it. This ship has been thoroughly stripped. Hood below-you’re sinking!’
‘And I do not think you will be able to do anything about it, lowlander. Leave me to my fate. Take the water, and my weapons-’
But Torvald had reappeared, rope in his hand, sliding down over the gunnel near the high prow and back into the water. Breathing hard, he fumbled with the rope for a moment before managing to slip it underneath the chains. He then drew it along and repeated the effort on the other side of the raft. A third time, down near Karsa’s left foot, then a fourth loop opposite.
The Teblor could feel the wet, heavy rope being dragged through the chains. ‘What are you doing?’
Torvald made no reply. Still trailing the rope, he climbed back onto the ship. There was another long stretch of silence, then Karsa heard movement once more, and the rope slowly tautened.
Torvald’s head and shoulders moved into view. The lowlander was deathly pale. ‘Best I could do, friend. There may be some more settling, but hopefully not much. I will check again on you in a little while. Don’t worry, I won’t let you drown. I’m going to do some exploring right now-the bastards couldn’t have taken everything.’ He vanished from Karsa’s line of sight.
The Teblor waited, racked with shivering as the sea slowly embraced him. The level had reached his ears, muting all sounds other than the turgid swirl of water. He watched the four lengths of rope slowly growing tighter above him.
It was difficult to recall a time when his limbs had been free to move without restraint, when his raw, suppurating wrists had not known the implacable iron grip of shackles, when he had not felt-deep in his withered body-a vast weakness, a frailty, his blood flowing as thin as water. He closed his eyes and felt his mind falling away.
Away…
Urugal, I stand before you once more. Before these faces in the rock, before my gods. Urugal-
‘I see no Teblor standing before me. I see no warrior wading through his enemies, harvesting souls. I do not see the dead piled high on the ground, as numerous as a herd of bhederin driven over a cliff. Where are my gifts? Who is this who claims to serve me?’
Urugal. You are a bloodthirsty god-
‘A truth a Teblor warrior revels in!’
As I once did. But now, Urugal, I am no longer so sure-
‘Who stands before us? Not a Teblor warrior! Not a servant of mine!’
Urugal. What are these ‘bhederin’ you spoke of? What are these herds? Where among the lands of the Teblor-
‘Karsa!’
He flinched. Opened his eyes.
Torvald Nom, a burlap sack over one shoulder, was climbing back down. His feet made contact with the raft, pushing it a fraction deeper. Water stung the outside corners of Karsa’s eyes.
The sack made numerous clunking sounds as the Daru set it down and reached inside. ‘Tools, Karsa! A shipwright’s tools!’ He drew forth a chisel and an iron-capped mallet.
The Teblor felt his heart begin pounding hard in his chest.
Torvald set the chisel against a chain link, then began hammering.
A dozen swings, the concussions pealing loudly in the still, murky air, then the chain snapped. Its own weight swiftly dragged it through the iron ring of Karsa’s right wrist shackle. Then, with a soft rustle, it was gone beneath the sea’s surface. Agony lanced through his arm as he attempted to move it. The Teblor grunted, even as consciousness slipped away.
He awoke to the sounds of hammering, down beside his right foot, and thundering waves of pain, through which he heard, dimly, Torvald’s voice.
‘… heavy, Karsa. You’ll need to do the impossible. You’ll need to climb. That means rolling over, getting onto your hands and knees. Standing. Walking-oh, Hood, you’re right, I’ll need to think of something else. No food anywhere on this damned ship.’ There was a loud crack, then the hiss of a chain falling away. ‘That’s it, you’re free. Don’t worry, I’ve retied the ropes to the platform itself-you won’t sink. Free. How’s it feel? Never mind-I’ll ask that a few days from now. Even so, you’re free, Karsa. I promised, didn’t I? Let it not be said that Torvald Nom doesn’t hold to his-well, uh, let it not be said that Torvald Nom isn’t afraid of new beginnings.’
‘Too many words,’ Karsa muttered.
‘Aye, far too many. Try moving, at least.’
‘I am.’
‘Bend your right arm.’
‘I am trying.’
‘Shall I do it for you?’
‘Slowly. Should I lose consciousness, do not cease. And do the same for the remaining limbs.’
He felt the lowlander’s hands grip his right arm, at the wrist and above the elbow, then, once again, mercifully, blackness swallowed him.
When he came to once more, bundles of sodden cloth had been propped beneath his head, and he was lying on his side, limbs curled. There was dull pain in every muscle, every joint, yet it seemed strangely remote. He slowly lifted his head.
He was still on the platform. The ropes that held it to the ship’s prow had prevented it from sinking further. Torvald Nom was nowhere in sight.
‘I call upon the blood of the Teblor,’ Karsa whispered. ‘All that is within me must be used now to heal, to gift me strength. I am freed. I did not surrender. The warrior remains. He remains…’ He tried to move his arms. Throbs of pain, sharp, but bearable. He shifted his legs, gasped at the agony flaring in his hips. A moment of light-headedness, threatening oblivion once again… that then passed.
He tried to push himself to his hands and knees. Every minuscule shift was torture, but he refused to surrender to it. Sweat streamed down his limbs. Waves of trembling washed through him. Eyes squeezed shut, he struggled on.
He had no idea how much time had passed, but then he was sitting, the realization arriving with a shock. He was sitting, his full weight on his haunches, and the pain was fading. He lifted his arms, surprised and a little frightened by their looseness, horrified by their thinness.
As he rested, he looked about. The shattered ships remained, detritus clumped in makeshift rafts between them. Tattered sails hung in shrouds from the few remaining masts. The prow looming beside him held panels crowded with carvings: figures, locked in battle. The figures were long-limbed, standing on versions of ships closely resembling the raiders on all sides. Yet the enemy in these reliefs were not, it seemed, the ones the ship’s owners had faced here, for the craft they rode in were, if anything, smaller and lower than the raiders. The warriors looked much like Teblor, thick-limbed, heavily muscled, though in stature shorter than their foes.
Movement in the water, a gleaming black hump, spike-finned, rising into view then vanishing again. All at once, more appeared, and the surface of the water between the ships was suddenly aswirl. There was life in this sea after all, and it had come to feed.
The platform lurched beneath Karsa, throwing him off balance. His left arm shot out to take his weight as he began toppling. A jarring impact, excruciating pain-but the arm held.
He saw a bloated corpse roll up into view alongside the raft, then a black shape, a broad, toothless mouth, gaping wide, sweeping up and around the corpse, swallowing it whole. A small grey eye behind a spiny whisker flashed into sight as the huge fish swept past. The eye swivelled to track him, then the creature was gone.
Karsa had not seen enough of the corpse to judge whether it was a match to him in size, or to the Daru, Torvald Nom. But the fish could have taken Karsa as easily as it had the corpse.
He needed to stand. Then, to climb.
And-as he watched another massive black shape break the surface alongside another ship, a shape almost as long as the ship itself-he would have to do it quickly.
He heard footsteps from above, then Torvald Nom was at the gunnel beside the prow. ‘We’ve got to-oh, Beru bless you, Karsa! Can you stand up? You’ve no choice-these catfish are bigger than sharks and likely just as nasty. There’s one-just rolled up behind you-it’s circling, it knows you’re there! Stand up, use the ropes!’
Nodding, Karsa reached up for the nearest stretch of rope.
An explosion of water behind him. The platform shuddered, wood splintering-Torvald screamed a warning-and Karsa knew without looking back over his shoulder that one of the creatures had just risen up, had just thrown itself bodily onto the raft, splitting it in two.
The rope was in his hand. He gripped hard as the sloshing surface beneath him seemed to vanish. A flood of water around his legs, rising to his hips. Karsa closed his other hand on the same rope.
‘Urugal! Witness!’
He drew his legs from the foaming water, then, hand over hand, climbed upward. The rope swung free of the platform’s fragments, threw him against the ship’s hull. He grunted at the impact, yet would not let go.
‘Karsa! Your legs!’
The Teblor looked down, saw nothing but a massive mouth, opened impossibly wide, rising up beneath him.
Hands closed on his wrists. Screaming at the pain in his shoulders and hips, Karsa pulled himself upward in a single desperate surge.
The mouth snapped shut in a spray of milky water.
Knees cracking against the gunnel, Karsa scrambled wildly for a moment, then managed to shift his weight over the rail, drawing his legs behind him, to sprawl with a heavy thump on the deck.
Torvald’s shrieks continued unabated, forcing the Teblor to roll over-to see the Daru fighting to hold on to what appeared to be some kind of harpoon. Torvald’s shouts, barely comprehensible, seemed to be referring to a line. Karsa glanced about, until he saw that the harpoon’s butt-end held a thin rope, which trailed down to a coiled pile almost within the Teblor’s reach. Groaning, he scrabbled towards it. He found the end, began dragging it towards the prow.
He pulled himself up beside it, looped the line over and around, once, twice-then there was a loud curse from Torvald, and the coil began playing out. Karsa threw the line around one more time, then managed something like a half-hitch.
He did not expect the thin rope to hold. He ducked down beneath it as the last of the coil was snatched from his hands, thrumming taut.
The galley creaked, the prow visibly bending, then the ship lurched into motion, shuddering as it was dragged along the sandy bottom.
Torvald scrambled up beside Karsa. ‘Gods below, I didn’t think-let’s hope it holds!’ he gasped. ‘If it does, we won’t go hungry for a long while, no, not a long while!’ He slapped Karsa on the back, then pulled himself up to the prow. His wild grin vanished. ‘Oh.’
Karsa rose.
The harpoon’s end was visible directly ahead, cutting a V through the choppy waves-heading directly for one of the larger, three-masted ships. The grinding sound suddenly ceased beneath the raider, and the craft surged forward.
‘To the stern, Karsa! To the stern!’
Torvald made a brief effort to drag Karsa, then gave up with a curse, running full tilt for the galley’s stern.
Weaving, fighting waves of blackness, the Teblor staggered after the Daru. ‘Could you not have speared a smaller one?’
The impact sent them both sprawling. A terrible splitting sound reverberated down the galley’s spine, and all at once there was water everywhere, foaming up from the hatches, sweeping in from the sides. Planks from the hull on both sides parted like groping fingers.
Karsa found himself thrashing about in waist-deep water. Something like a deck remained beneath him, and he managed to struggle upright. And, bobbing wildly directly in front of him, was his original blood-sword. He snatched at it, felt his hand close about the familiar grip. Exultation soared through him, and he loosed an Uryd warcry.
Torvald sloshed into view beside him. ‘If that didn’t freeze that fish’s tiny heart, nothing will. Come on, we need to get onto that other damned ship. There’s more of those bastards closing in all around us.’
They struggled forward.
The ship they had broadsided had been leaning in the other direction. The galley had plunged into its hull, creating a massive hole before itself shattering, the prow with its harpoon line snapping off and vanishing within the ship’s lower decks. It was clear that the huge ship was solidly grounded, nor had the collision dislodged it.
As they neared the gaping hole, they could hear wild thrashing from somewhere within, deep in the hold.
‘Hood take me!’ Torvald muttered in disbelief. ‘That thing went through the hull first. Well, at least we’re not fighting a creature gifted with genius. It’s trapped down there, is my guess. We should go hunting-’
‘Leave that to me,’ Karsa growled.
‘You? You can barely stand-’
‘Even so, I will kill it.’
‘Well, can’t I watch?’
‘If you insist.’
There were three decks within the ship’s hull, in so far as they could see, the bottom one comprising the hold itself, the other two scaled to suit tall lowlanders. The hold had been half-filled with cargo, which was now tumbling out in the backwash-bundles, bales and casks.
Karsa plunged into waist-deep water, making for the thrashing sounds deeper within. He found the huge fish writhing on the second level, in sloshing, foaming water that barely covered the Teblor’s ankles. Spears of splintered wood jutted from the fish’s enormous head, blood streaming out to stain the foam pink. It had rolled onto its side, revealing a smooth, silvery underbelly.
Clambering across to the creature, Karsa drove his sword into its abdomen. The huge tail twisted round, struck him with the strength of a destrier’s kick. He was suddenly in the air, then the curved wall of the hull struck his back.
Stunned by the impact, the Teblor slumped in the swirling water. He blinked the drops from his eyes, then, unmoving in the gloom, watched the fish’s death-throes.
Torvald climbed into view. ‘You’re still damned fast, Karsa-left me behind. But I see you’ve done the deed. There’s food among these supplies…’
But Karsa heard no more, as unconsciousness took him once again.
He awoke to the stench of putrefying flesh that hung heavy in the still air. In the half-light, he could just make out the body of the dead fish opposite him, its belly slit open, a pallid corpse partially tumbled out. There was the distant sound of movement somewhere above him.
Well beyond the fish and to the right, steep steps were visible, leading upward.
Fighting to keep from gagging, Karsa collected his sword and began crawling towards the stairs.
He eventually emerged onto the midship’s deck. Its sorcery-scarred surface was sharply canted, sufficient to make traverse difficult. Supplies had been collected and were piled against the downside railing, where ropes trailed over the side. Pausing near the hatch to regain his breath, Karsa looked around for Torvald Nom, but the Daru was nowhere in sight.
Magic had ripped deep gouges across the deck. There were no bodies visible anywhere, no indications of the nature of the ship’s owners. The black wood-which seemed to emanate darkness-was of a species the Teblor did not recognize, and it was devoid of any ornamentation, evoking pragmatic simplicity. He found himself strangely comforted.
Torvald Nom clambered into view from the downside rail. He had managed to remove the chains attached to his shackles, leaving only the black iron bands on wrists and ankles. He was breathing hard.
Karsa pushed himself upright, leaning on the sword’s point for support.
‘Ah, my giant friend, with us once more!’
‘You must find my weakness frustrating,’ Karsa grumbled.
‘To be expected, all things considered,’ Torvald said, moving among the supplies now. ‘I’ve found food. Come and eat, Karsa, while I tell you of my discoveries.’
The Teblor slowly made his way down the sloping deck.
Torvald drew out a brick-shaped loaf of dark bread. ‘I’ve found a dory, and oars to go along with a sail, so we won’t remain victims to this endless calm. We’ve water for a week and a half, if we’re sparing, and we won’t go hungry no matter how fast your appetite comes back…’
Karsa took the bread from the Daru’s hand and began tearing off small chunks. His teeth felt slightly loose, and he was not confident of attempting anything beyond gentle chewing. The bread was rich and moist, filled with morsels of sweet fruit and tasting of honey. His first swallow left him struggling to keep it down. Torvald handed him a skin filled with water, then resumed his monologue.
‘The dory’s got benches enough for twenty or so-spacious for lowlanders but we’ll need to knock one loose to give your legs some room. If you lean over the gunnel you can see it for yourself. I’ve been busy loading what we’ll need. We could explore some of the other ships if you like, though we’ve more than enough-’
‘No need,’ Karsa said. ‘Let us leave this place as quickly as possible.’
Torvald’s eyes narrowed on the Teblor for a moment, then the Daru nodded. ‘Agreed. Karsa, you say you did not call upon that storm. Very well. I shall have to believe you-that you’ve no recollection of having done so, in any case. But I was wondering, this cult of yours, these Seven Faces in the Rock or however they’re called. Do they claim a warren for themselves? A realm other than the one you and I live in, where they exist?’
Karsa swallowed another mouthful of bread. ‘I had heard nothing of these warrens you speak of, Torvald Nom. The Seven dwell in the rock, and in the dreamworld of the Teblor.’
‘Dreamworld…’ Torvald waved a hand. ‘Does any of this look like that dreamworld, Karsa?’
‘No.’
‘What if it had been… flooded?’
Karsa scowled. ‘You remind me of Bairoth Gild. Your words make no sense. The Teblor dreamworld is a place of no hills, where mosses and lichens cling to half-buried boulders, where snow makes low dunes sculpted by cold winds. Where strange brown-haired beasts run in packs in the distance…’
‘Have you visited it yourself, then?’
Karsa shrugged. ‘These are descriptions given by the shamans.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘The place I visited…’ He trailed off, then shook his head. ‘Different. A place of… of coloured mists.’
‘Coloured mists. And were your gods there?’
‘You are not Teblor. I have no need to tell you more. I have spoken too much already.’
‘Very well. I was just trying to determine where we were.’
‘We are on a sea, and there is no land.’
‘Well, yes. But which sea? Where’s the sun? Why is there no night? No wind? Which direction shall we choose?’
‘It does not matter which direction. Any direction.’ Karsa rose from where he had been sitting on a bale. ‘I have eaten enough for now. Come, let us finish loading, and then leave.’
‘As you say, Karsa.’
He felt stronger with each passing day, lengthening his turns at the oars each time he took over from Torvald Nom. The sea was shallow, and more than once the dory ground up onto shoals, though fortunately these were of sand and so did little to damage the hull. They had seen nothing of the huge catfish, nor any other life in the water or in the sky, though the occasional piece of driftwood drifted past, devoid of bark or leaf.
As Karsa’s strength returned, their supply of food quickly dwindled, and though neither spoke of it, despair had become an invisible passenger, a third presence that silenced the Teblor and the Daru, that shackled them as had their captors of old, and the ghostly chains grew heavier.
In the beginning they had marked out days based on the balance of sleep and wakefulness, but the pattern soon collapsed as Karsa took to rowing through Torvald’s periods of sleep in addition to relieving the weary Daru at other times. It became quickly evident that the Teblor required less rest, whilst Torvald seemed to need ever more.
They were down to the last cask of water, which held only a third of its capacity. Karsa was at the oars, pulling the undersized sticks in broad, effortless sweeps through the murky swells. Torvald lay huddled beneath the sail, restless in his sleep.
The ache was almost gone from Karsa’s shoulders, though pain lingered in his hips and legs. He had fallen into a pattern of repetition empty of thought, unaware of the passage of time, his only concern that of maintaining a straight course-as best as he could determine, given the lack of reference points. He had naught but the dory’s own wake to direct him.
Torvald’s eyes opened, bloodshot and red-rimmed. He had long ago lost his loquaciousness. Karsa suspected the man was sick-they’d not had a conversation in some time. The Daru slowly sat up.
Then stiffened. ‘We’ve company,’ he said, his voice cracking.
Karsa shipped the oars and twisted round in his seat. A large, three-masted, black ship was bearing down on them, twin banks of oars flashing dark over the milky water. Beyond it, on the horizon’s very edge, ran a dark, straight line. The Teblor collected his sword then slowly stood.
‘That’s the strangest coast I’ve ever seen,’ Torvald muttered. ‘Would that we’d reached it without the company.’
‘It is a wall,’ Karsa said. ‘A straight wall, before which lies some kind of beach.’ He returned his gaze to the closing ship. ‘It is like those that had been beset by the raiders.’
‘So it is, only somewhat bigger. Flagship, is my guess, though I see no flag.’
They could see figures now, crowding the high forecastle. Tall, though not as tall as Karsa, and much leaner.
‘Not human,’ Torvald muttered. ‘Karsa, I do not think they will be friendly. Just a feeling, mind you. Still…’
‘I have seen one of them before,’ the Teblor replied. ‘Half spilled out from the belly of the catfish.’
‘That beach is rolling with the waves, Karsa. It’s flotsam. Must be two, three thousand paces of it. The wreckage of an entire world. As I suspected, this sea doesn’t belong here.’
‘Yet there are ships.’
‘Aye, meaning they don’t belong here, either.’
Karsa shrugged his indifference to that observation. ‘Have you a weapon, Torvald Nom?’
‘A harpoon… and a mallet. You will not try to talk first?’
Karsa said nothing. The twin banks of oars had lifted from the water and now hovered motionless over the waves as the huge ship slid towards them. The oars dipped suddenly, straight down, the water churning as the ship slowed, then came to a stop.
The dory thumped as it made contact with the hull on the port side, just beyond the prow.
A rope ladder snaked down, but Karsa, his sword slung over a shoulder, was already climbing up the hull, there being no shortage of handholds. He reached the forecastle rail and swung himself up and over it. His feet found the deck and he straightened.
A ring of grey-skinned warriors faced him. Taller than lowlanders, but still a head shorter than the Teblor. Curved sabres were scabbarded to their hips, and much of their clothing was made of some kind of hide, short-haired, dark and glistening. Their long brown hair was intricately braided, hanging down to frame angular, multihued eyes. Behind them, down amidships, there was a pile of severed heads, a few lowlander but most similar in features to the grey-skinned warriors, though with skins of black.
Ice rippled up Karsa’s spine as he saw countless eyes among those severed heads shift towards him.
One of the grey-skinned warriors snapped something, his expression as contemptuous as his tone.
Behind Karsa, Torvald reached the railing.
The speaker seemed to be waiting for some sort of response. As the silence stretched, the faces on either side twisted into sneers. The spokesman barked out a command, pointed to the deck.
‘Uh, he wants us to kneel, Karsa,’ Torvald said. ‘I think maybe we should-’
‘I would not kneel when chained,’ Karsa growled. ‘Why would I do so now?’
‘Because I count sixteen of them-and who knows how many more are below. And they’re getting angrier-’
‘Sixteen or sixty,’ Karsa cut in. ‘They know nothing of fighting Teblor.’
‘How can you-’
Karsa saw two warriors shift gauntleted hands towards sword-grips. The bloodsword flashed out, cut a sweeping horizontal slash across the entire half-circle of grey-skinned warriors. Blood sprayed. Bodies reeled, sprawled backward, tumbling over the low railing and down to the mid-deck.
The forecastle was clear apart from Karsa and, a pace behind him, Torvald Nom.
The seven warriors who had been on the mid-deck drew back as one, then, unsheathing their weapons, they edged forward.
‘They were within my reach,’ Karsa answered the Daru’s question. ‘That is how I know they know nothing of fighting a Teblor. Now, witness while I take this ship.’ With a bellow he leapt down into the midst of the enemy.
The grey-skinned warriors were not lacking in skill, yet it availed them naught. Karsa had known the loss of freedom; he would not accept such again. The demand to kneel before these scrawny, sickly creatures had triggered in him seething fury.
Six of the seven warriors were down; the last one, shouting, had turned about and was running towards the doorway at the other end of the mid-deck. He paused long enough to drag a massive harpoon from a nearby rack, spinning and flinging it at Karsa.
The Teblor caught it in his left hand.
He closed on the fleeing man, cutting him down at the doorway’s threshold. Ducking and reversing the weapons in his hands-the harpoon now in his right and the bloodsword in his left-he plunged into the gloom of the passage beyond the doorway.
Two steps down, into a wide galley with a wooden table in its centre. A second doorway at the opposite end, a narrow passage beyond, lined by berths, then an ornate door that squealed as Karsa shoved it aside.
Four attackers, a fury of blows exchanged, Karsa blocking with the harpoon and counter-attacking with the bloodsword. In moments, four broken bodies dying on the cabin’s gleaming wooden floor. A fifth figure, seated in a chair on the other side of the room, hands raised, sorcery swirling into the air.
With a snarl, Karsa surged forward. The magic flashed, sputtered, then the harpoon’s point punched into the figure’s chest, tore through and drove into the chair’s wood backing. A look of disbelief frozen on the grey face, eyes locking with Karsa’s own one last time, before all life left them.
‘Urugal! Witness a Teblor’s rage!’
Silence following his ringing words, then the slow pat of blood dripping from the sorcerer’s chair onto the rug. Something cold rippled through Karsa, the breath of someone unknown, nameless, but filled with rage. Growling, he shrugged it off, then looked around. High-ceilinged for lowlanders, the ship’s cabin was all of the same black wood. Oil lanterns glimmered from sconces on the walls. On the table were maps and charts, the drawings on them illegible as far as the Teblor was concerned.
A sound from the doorway.
Karsa turned.
Torvald Nom stepped within, scanning the sprawled corpses, then fixing his gaze on the seated figure with the spear still impaling it. ‘You needn’t worry about the oarsmen,’ he said.
‘Are they slaves? Then we shall free them.’
‘Slaves?’ Torvald shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. They wear no chains, Karsa. Mind you, they have no heads, either. As I said, I don’t think we have to concern ourselves with them.’ He strode forward to examine the maps on the table. ‘Something tells me these hapless bastards you just killed were as lost as us-’
‘They were the victors in the battle of the ships.’
‘Little good it did them.’
Karsa shook the blood from his sword, drew a deep breath. ‘I kneel to no-one.’
‘I could’ve knelt twice and that might have satisfied them. Now, we’re as ignorant as we were before seeing this ship. Nor can the two of us manage a craft of this size.’
‘They would have done to us as was done to the oarsmen,’ Karsa asserted.
‘Possibly.’ He swung his attention on one of the corpses at his feet, slowly crouched. ‘Barbaric-looking, these ones-uh, by Daru standards, that is. Sealskin-true seafarers, then-and strung claws and teeth and shells. The one in the captain’s chair was a mage?’
‘Yes. I do not understand such warriors. Why not use swords or spears? Their magic is pitiful, yet they seem so sure of it. And look at his expression-’
‘Surprised, yes,’ Torvald murmured. He glanced back at Karsa. ‘They’re confident because sorcery usually works. Most attackers don’t survive getting hit by magic. It rips them apart.’
Karsa made his way back to the doorway. After a moment Torvald followed.
They returned to the mizzen deck. Karsa began stripping the corpses lying about, severing ears and tongues before tossing the naked bodies overboard.
The Daru watched for a time, then he moved to the decapitated heads. ‘They’ve been following everything you do,’ he said to Karsa, ‘with their eyes. It’s too much to bear.’ He removed the hide wrapping of a nearby bundle and folded it around the nearest severed head, then tied it tight. ‘Darkness would better suit them, all things considered…’
Karsa frowned. ‘Why do you say that, Torvald Nom? Which would you prefer, the ability to see things around you, or darkness?’
‘These are Tiste Andu, apart from a few-and those few look far too much like me.’
‘Who are these Tiste Andu?’
‘Just a people. There are some fighting in Caladan Brood’s liberation army on Genabackis. An ancient people, it’s said. In any case, they worship Darkness.’
Karsa, suddenly weary, sat down on the steps leading to the forecastle. ‘Darkness,’ he muttered. ‘A place where one is left blind-a strange thing to worship.’
‘Perhaps the most realistic worship of all,’ the Daru replied, wrapping another severed head. ‘How many of us bow before a god in the desperate hope that we can somehow shape our fate? Praying to that familiar face pushes away our terror of the unknown-the unknown being the future. Who knows, maybe these Tiste Andu are the only ones among us all who see the truth, the truth being oblivion.’ Keeping his eyes averted, he carefully gathered another black-skinned, long-haired head. ‘It’s a good thing these poor souls have no throats left to utter sounds, else we find ourselves in a ghastly debate.’
‘You doubt your own words, then.’
‘Always, Karsa. On a more mundane level, words are like gods-a means of keeping the terror at bay. I will likely have nightmares about this until my aged heart finally gives out. An endless succession of heads, with all-too-cognizant eyes, to wrap up in sealskin. And with each one I tie up, pop! Another appears.’
‘Your words are naught but foolishness.’
‘Oh, and how many souls have you delivered unto darkness, Karsa Orlong?’
The Teblor’s eyes narrowed. ‘I do not think it was darkness that they found,’ he replied quietly. After a moment, he looked away, struck silent by a sudden realization. A year ago he would have killed someone for saying what Torvald had just said, had he understood its intent to wound-which in itself was unlikely. A year ago, words had been blunt, awkward things, confined within a simple, if slightly mysterious world. But that flaw had been Karsa’s alone-not a characteristic of the Teblor in general-for Bairoth Gild had flung many-edged words at Karsa, a constant source of amusement for the clever warrior though probably dulled by Karsa’s own unawareness of their intent.
Torvald Nom’s endless words-but no, more than just that-all that Karsa had experienced since leaving his village-had served as instruction on the complexity of the world. Subtlety had been a venomed serpent slithering unseen through his life. Its fangs had sunk deep many times, yet not once had he become aware of their origin; not once had he even understood the source of the pain. The poison itself had coursed deep within him, and the only answer he gave-when he gave one at all-was of violence, often misdirected, a lashing out on all sides.
Darkness, and living blind. Karsa returned his gaze to the Daru kneeling and wrapping severed heads, there on the mizzen deck. And who has dragged the cloth from my eyes? Who has awakened Karsa Orlong, son of Synyg? Urugal? No, not Urugal. He knew that for certain, for the otherworldly rage he had felt in the cabin, that icy breath that had swept through him-that had belonged to his god. A fierce displeasure-to which Karsa had found himself oddly… indifferent.
The Seven Faces in the Rock never spoke of freedom. The Teblor were their servants. Their slaves.
‘You look unwell, Karsa,’ Torvald said, approaching. ‘I am sorry for my last words-’
‘There is no need, Torvald Nom,’ Karsa said, rising. ‘We should return to our-’
He stopped as the first splashes of rain struck him, then the deck on all sides. Milky, slimy rain.
‘Uh!’ Torvald grunted. ‘If this is a god’s spit, he’s decidedly unwell.’
The water smelled foul, rotten. It quickly coated the ship decks, the rigging and tattered sails overhead, in a thick, pale grease.
Swearing, the Daru began gathering foodstuffs and watercasks to load into their dory below. Karsa completed one last circuit of the decks, examining the weapons and armour he had pulled from the grey-skinned bodies. He found the rack of harpoons and gathered the six that remained.
The downpour thickened, creating murky, impenetrable walls on all sides of the ship. Slipping in the deepening muck, Karsa and Torvald quickly resupplied the dory, then pushed out from the ship’s hull, the Teblor at the oars. Within moments the ship was lost from sight, and around them the rain slackened. Five sweeps of the oars and they were out from beneath it entirely, once again on gently heaving seas under a pallid sky. The strange coastline was visible ahead, slowly drawing closer.
On the forecastle of the massive ship, moments after the dory with its two passengers slipped behind the screen of muddy rain, seven almost insubstantial figures rose from the slime. Shattered bones, gaping wounds bleeding nothing, the figures weaved uncertainly in the gloom, as if barely able to maintain their grip on the scene they had entered.
One of them hissed with anger. ‘Each time we seek to draw the knot tight-’
‘He cuts it,’ another finished in a wry, bitter tone.
A third one stepped down to the mizzen deck, kicked desultorily at a discarded sword. ‘The failure belonged to the Tiste Edur,’ this one pronounced in a rasping voice. ‘If punishment must be enacted, it should be in answer to their arrogance.’
‘Not for us to demand,’ the first speaker snapped. ‘We are not the masters in this scheme-’
‘Nor are the Tiste Edur!’
‘Even so, and we are each given particular tasks. Karsa Orlong survives still, and he must be our only concern-’
‘He begins to know doubts.’
‘None the less, his journey continues. It falls to us, now, with what little power we are able to extend, to direct his path onward.’
‘We’ve had scant success thus far!’
‘Untrue. The Shattered Warren stirs awake once more. The broken heart of the First Empire begins to bleed-less than a trickle at the moment, but soon it will become a flood. We need only set our chosen warrior upon the proper current…’
‘And is that within our power, limited as it still remains?’
‘Let us find out. Begin the preparations. Ber’ok, scatter that handful of otataral dust in the cabin-the Tiste Edur sorcerer’s warren remains open and, in this place, it will quickly become a wound… a growing wound. The time has not yet come for such unveilings.’
The speaker then lifted its mangled head and seemed to sniff the air. ‘We must work quickly,’ it announced after a moment. ‘I believe we are being hunted.’
The remaining six turned to face the speaker, who nodded in answer to their silent question. ‘Yes. There are kin upon our trail.’
The wreckage of an entire land had drawn up alongside the massive stone wall. Uprooted trees, rough-hewn logs, planks, shingles and pieces of wagons and carts were visible amidst the detritus. The verges were thick with matted grasses and rotted leaves, forming a broad plain that twisted, rose and fell on the waves. The wall was barely visible in places, so high was the flotsam, and the level of the water beneath it.
Torvald Nom was positioned at the bow whilst Karsa rowed. ‘I don’t know how we’ll get to that wall,’ the Daru said. ‘You’d better back the oars now, friend, lest we ground ourselves on that mess-there’s catfish about.’
Karsa slowed the dory. They drifted, the hull nudging the carpet of flotsam. After a few moments it became apparent that there was a current, pulling their craft along the edge.
‘Well,’ Torvald muttered, ‘that’s a first for this sea. Do you think this is some sort of tide?’
‘No,’ Karsa replied, his gaze tracking the strange shoreline in the direction of the current. ‘It is a breach in the wall.’
‘Oh. Can you see where?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
The current was tugging them along faster, now.
Karsa continued, ‘There is an indentation in the shoreline, and many trees and logs jammed where the wall should be-can you not hear the roar?’
‘Aye, now I can.’ Tension rode the Daru’s words. He straightened at the bow. ‘I see it. Karsa, we’d better-’
‘Yes, it is best we avoid this.’ The Teblor repositioned himself at the oars. He drew the dory away from the verge. The hull tugged sluggishly beneath them, began twisting. Karsa leaned his weight into each sweep, struggling to regain control. The water swirled around them.
‘Karsa!’ Torvald shouted. ‘There’s people-near the breach! I see a wrecked boat!’
The breach was on the Teblor’s left as he pulled the dory across the current. He looked to where Torvald was pointing, and, after a moment, he bared his teeth. ‘The slavemaster and his men.’
‘They’re waving us over.’
Karsa ceased sweeping with his left oar. ‘We cannot defeat this current,’ he announced, swinging the craft around. ‘The further out we proceed, the stronger it becomes.’
‘I think that’s what happened to Silgar’s boat-they managed to ground it just this side of the mouth, stoving it in, in the process. We should try to avoid a similar fate, Karsa, if we can, that is.’
‘Then keep an eye out for submerged logs,’ the Teblor said as he angled the dory closer to shore. ‘Also, are the lowlanders armed?’
‘Not that I can see,’ Torvald replied after a moment. ‘They look to be in, uh, in pretty bad condition. They’re perched on a small island of logs. Silgar, and Damisk, and one other… Borrug, I think. Gods, Karsa, they’re starved.’
‘Take a harpoon,’ the Teblor growled. ‘That hunger could well drive them to desperation.’
‘A touch shoreward, Karsa, we’re almost there.’
There was a soft crunch from the hull, then a grinding, stuttering motion as the current sought to drag them along the verge. Torvald clambered out, ropes in one hand and harpoon in the other. Beyond him, Karsa saw as he turned about, huddled the three Nathii lowlanders, making no move to help and, if anything, drawing back as far as they could manage on the tangled island. The breach’s roar was a still-distant thundering, though closer at hand were ominous cracks, tearing and shifting noises-the logjam was coming loose.
Torvald made fast the dory with a skein of lines tied to various branches and roots. Karsa stepped ashore, drawing his bloodsword, his eyes levelling on Silgar.
The slavemaster attempted to retreat further.
Near the three emaciated lowlanders lay the remains of a fourth, his bones picked clean.
‘Teblor!’ Silgar implored. ‘You must listen to me!’
Karsa slowly advanced.
‘I can save us!’
Torvald tugged at Karsa’s arm. ‘Wait, friend, let’s hear the bastard.’
‘He will say anything,’ Karsa growled.
‘Even so-’
Damisk Greydog spoke. ‘Karsa Orlong, listen! This island is being torn apart-we all need your boat. Silgar’s a mage-he can open a portal. But not if he’s drowning. Understand? He can take us from this realm!’
‘Karsa,’ Torvald said, weaving as the logs shifted under him, his grip on the Teblor’s arm tightening.
Karsa looked down at the Daru beside him. ‘You trust Silgar?’
‘Of course not. But we’ve no choice-we’d be unlikely to survive plunging through that breach in the dory. We don’t even know this wall’s height-the drop on the other side could be endless. Karsa, we’re armed and they’re not-besides, they’re too weak to cause us trouble, you can see that, can’t you?’
Silgar screamed as a large section of the logjam sank away immediately behind him.
Scowling, Karsa sheathed his sword. ‘Begin untying the boat, Torvald.’ He waved at the lowlanders. ‘Come, then. But know this, Slavemaster, any sign of treachery from you and your friends will be picking your bones next.’
Damisk, Silgar and Borrug scrambled forward.
The entire section of flotsam was pulling away, breaking up along its edges as the current swept it onward. Clearly, the breach was expanding, widening to the pressure of an entire sea.
Silgar climbed in and crouched down beside the dory’s prow. ‘I shall open a portal,’ he announced, his voice a rasp. ‘I can only do so but once-’
‘Then why didn’t you leave a long time ago?’ Torvald demanded, as he slipped the last line loose and clambered back aboard.
‘There was no path before-out on the sea. But now, here-someone has opened a gate. Close. The fabric is… weakened. I’ve not the skill to do such a thing myself. But I can follow.’
The dory scraped free of the crumbling island, swung wildly into the sweeping current. Karsa pushed and pulled with the oars to angle their bow into the torrential flow.
‘Follow?’ Torvald repeated. ‘Where?’
To that Silgar simply shook his head.
Karsa abandoned the oars and made his way to the stern, taking the tiller in both hands.
They rode the tumbling, churning sea of wreckage towards the breach. Where the wall had given way there was an ochre cloud of mist as vast and high as a thunderhead. Beyond it, there seemed to be nothing at all.
Silgar was making gestures with both hands, snapping them out as would a blind man seeking a door latch. Then he jabbed a finger to the right. ‘There!’ he shrieked, swinging a wild look on Karsa. ‘There! Angle us there!’
The place Silgar pointed towards looked no different from anywhere else. Immediately beyond it, the water simply vanished-a wavering line that was the breach itself. Shrugging, Karsa pushed on the tiller. Where they went over mattered little to him. If Silgar failed they would plunge over, falling whatever distance, to crash amidst a foaming maelstrom that would kill them all.
He watched as everyone but Silgar hunkered down, mute with terror.
The Teblor smiled. ‘Urugal!’ he bellowed, half rising as the dory raced for the edge.
Darkness swallowed them.
And then they were falling.
A loud, explosive crack. The tiller’s handle split under Karsa’s hands, then the stern hammered into him from behind, throwing the Teblor forward. He struck water a moment later, the impact making him gasp-taking in a mouthful of salty sea-before plunging into the chill blackness.
He struggled upward until his head broke the surface, but there was no lessening of the darkness, as if they’d fallen down a well, or had appeared within a cave. Nearby, someone was coughing helplessly, whilst a little farther off another survivor was thrashing about.
Wreckage brushed up against Karsa. The dory had shattered, though the Teblor was fairly certain that the fall had not been overly long-they had arrived at a height of perhaps two adult warriors combined. Unless the boat had struck something, it should have survived.
‘Karsa!’
Still coughing, Torvald Nom arrived alongside the Teblor. The Daru had found the shaft of one of the oars, over which he had draped his arms. ‘What in Hood’s name do you think happened?’
‘We passed through that sorcerous gate,’ Karsa explained. ‘That should be obvious, for we are now somewhere else.’
‘Not as simple as that,’ Torvald replied. ‘The blade of this oar-here, look at the end.’
Finding himself comfortably buoyant in this salty water, it took only a moment for Karsa to swim to the end of the shaft. It had been cut through, as if by a single blow from an iron sword such as the lowlanders used. He grunted.
The distant thrashing sounds had drawn closer. From much farther away, Damisk’s voice called out.
‘Here!’ Torvald shouted back.
A shape loomed up beside them. It was Silgar, clinging to one of the water casks.
‘Where are we?’ Karsa asked the slavemaster.
‘How should I know?’ the Nathii snapped. ‘I did not fashion the gate, I simply made use of it-and it had mostly closed, which is why the floor of the boat did not come with us. It was sheared clean off. None the less, I believe we are in a sea, beneath an overcast sky. Were there no ambient light, we’d not be able to see each other right now. Alas, I can hear no coast, though it’s so calm there might be no waves to brush the shoreline.’
‘Meaning we could be within a dozen strokes and not know it.’
‘Yes. Fortunately for us, it is a rather warm sea. We must simply await dawn-’
‘Assuming there is one,’ Torvald said.
‘There is,’ Silgar asserted. ‘Feel the layers in this water. It’s colder down where our feet are. So a sun has looked down upon this sea, I am certain of it.’
Damisk swam into view, struggling with Borrug, who seemed to be unconscious. As he reached out to take hold of the water cask Silgar pushed him back, then kicked himself further away.
‘Slavemaster!’ Damisk gasped.
‘This cask barely holds my weight as it is,’ Silgar hissed. ‘It’s near filled with fresh water-which we’re likely to need. What is the matter with Borrug?’
Torvald moved along to give Damisk a place at the oar shaft. The tattooed guard attempted to drape Borrug’s arms over it as well and Torvald drew closer once more to help.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ Damisk said. ‘He may have struck his head, though I can find no wound. He was babbling at first, floundering about, then he simply fell unconscious and nearly slipped under. I was lucky to reach him.’
Borrug’s head kept lolling beneath the surface.
Karsa reached out and collected the man’s wrists. ‘I will take him,’ he snarled, turning about and dragging the man’s arms around his neck.
‘A light!’ Torvald suddenly shouted. ‘I saw a light-there!’
The others swung round.
‘I see nothing,’ Silgar growled.
‘I did,’ Torvald insisted. ‘It was dim. Gone now. But I saw it-’
‘Likely an overwrought imagination,’ Silgar said. ‘Had I the strength, I’d open my warren-’
‘I know what I saw,’ the Daru said.
‘Lead us, then, Torvald Nom,’ Karsa said.
‘It could be in the wrong direction!’ Silgar hissed. ‘We are safer to wait-’
‘Then wait,’ Karsa replied.
‘I have the fresh water, not you-’
‘A good point. I shall have to kill you, then, since you have decided to stay here. We might need that water, after all. You won’t, because you will be dead.’
‘Teblor logic,’ Torvald chuckled, ‘is truly wonderful.’
‘Very well, I will follow,’ Silgar said.
The Daru set off at a slow but steady pace, kicking beneath the surface as he pulled the oar shaft along. Damisk kept one hand on the length of wood, managing a strange motion with his legs that resembled that of a frog.
Gripping Borrug’s wrists in one hand, Karsa moved into their wake. The unconscious lowlander’s head rested on his right shoulder, his knees bumping against the Teblor’s thighs.
Off to one side, feet thrashing, Silgar propelled the water cask along. Karsa could see that the cask was far less filled than the slavemaster had claimed-it could have easily borne them all.
The Teblor himself felt no need. He was not particularly tired, and it seemed that he possessed a natural buoyancy superior to that of the lowlanders. With each indrawn breath, his shoulders, upper arms and the upper half of his chest rose above the water. And apart from Borrug’s knees constantly fouling Karsa’s kicking, the lowlander’s presence was negligible…
There was, he realized, something odd about those knees. He paused, reached down.
Both legs were severed clean just beneath the kneecaps, the water warm in their immediate wakes.
Torvald had glanced back. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Do you think there are catfish in these waters?’
‘I doubt it,’ the Daru replied. ‘That was fresh water, after all.’
‘Good,’ Karsa grunted, resuming his swim.
There was no recurrence of the light Torvald had seen. They continued on in the unrelieved darkness, through perfectly calm water.
‘This is foolish,’ Silgar pronounced after a time. ‘We exhaust ourselves for no purpose-’
Torvald called, ‘Karsa, why did you ask about the catfish?’
Something huge and rough-skinned rose up to land on Karsa’s back, its massive weight driving him under. Borrug’s wrists were torn from his grip, the arms whipping back and vanishing. Pushed more than a warrior’s height beneath the surface, Karsa twisted round. One of his kicking feet collided with a solid, unyielding body. He used the contact to propel himself away and back towards the surface.
Even as he reached it-bloodsword in his hands-he saw, less than a body length distant, an enormous grey fish, its jagged-toothed mouth closing about the little that remained visible of Borrug. Lacerated head, shoulders and flopping arms. The fish’s wide head thrashed wildly back and forth, its strange saucer-like eyes flashing as if lit from within.
There was screaming behind Karsa and he turned. Both Damisk and Silgar were kicking wildly in an effort to escape. Torvald was on his back, the oar held tight in his hands, his legs kicking beneath the surface-he alone was making no noise, though his face was twisted with fear.
Karsa faced the fish once more. It seemed to be having trouble swallowing Borrug-one of the man’s arms was lodged crossways. The fish itself was positioned close to vertical in the water, ripping its head back and forth.
Growling, Karsa swam towards it.
Borrug’s arm came free even as the Teblor arrived, the corpse disappearing within the maw. Taking a deep breath and kicking hard, Karsa half rose out of the water, his bloodsword a curving spray as it chopped down into the fish’s snout.
Warm blood spattered Karsa’s forearms.
The fish seemed to fling its entire body backward.
Karsa lunged closer, closing his legs around the creature’s body just beneath the flanking flippers. The fish twisted away at the contact, but could not drag itself free of Karsa’s tightening grip.
The Teblor reversed his sword and plunged it deep into the beast’s belly, ripped it downward.
The water was suddenly hot with blood and bile. The fish’s body became a dead weight, dragging Karsa downward. He sheathed his sword; then, as he and the fish sank beneath the surface, he reached down into the gaping wound. One hand closed on the thigh of Borrug-a shredded mass of flesh-and the fingers dug in to close around bone.
Karsa pulled the lowlander through a cloud of milky, eye-stinging fluid, then, drawing the body with him, returned to the surface.
Torvald was shouting now. Turning, Karsa saw the Daru, standing in waist-deep water, both arms waving. Near him, Silgar and Damisk were wading their way onto some kind of shore.
Dragging Borrug with him, Karsa made his way forward. A half-dozen strokes and his feet thumped and scraped on a sandy bottom. He stood, still holding one of Borrug’s legs. Moments later, he was on the beach.
The others sat or knelt on the pale strip of sand, regaining their breaths.
Dropping the body onto the beach, Karsa remained standing, his head tilted back as he sniffed the warm, sultry air. There was heavy, lush foliage beyond the strand’s shell-cluttered high-tide line. The buzz and whine of insects, a faint rustle as something small moved across dry seaweed.
Torvald crawled close. ‘Karsa, the man’s dead. He was dead when the shark took him-’
‘So that was a shark. The sailors on the Malazan ship spoke of sharks.’
‘Karsa, when a shark swallows someone you don’t go after the poor bastard. He’s finished-’
‘He was in my care,’ Karsa rumbled. ‘The shark had no right to him, whether he was dead or alive.’
Silgar was on his feet a few paces away. At Karsa’s words he laughed, the sound high-pitched, then said, ‘From a shark’s belly to seagulls and crabs! Borrug’s pathetic spirit no doubt thanks you, Teblor!’
‘I have delivered the lowlander,’ Karsa replied, ‘and now return him to your care, Slavemaster. If you wish to leave him for seagulls and crabs, that is for you to decide.’ He faced the dark sea once more, but could see no sign of the dead shark.
‘No-one would believe me,’ Torvald muttered.
‘Believe what, Torvald Nom?’
‘Oh, I was imagining myself as an old man, years from now, sitting in Quip’s Bar in Darujhistan, telling this tale. I saw it with my own eyes, and even I am having trouble believing it. You were halfway out of the water when you swung that sword down-helps having four lungs, I suppose. Even so…’ he shook his head.
Karsa shrugged. ‘The catfish were worse,’ he said. ‘I did not like the catfish.’
‘I suggest,’ Silgar called out, ‘we get some sleep. Come the dawn, we will discover what there is to discover of this place. For now, thank Mael that we are still alive.’
‘Forgive me,’ Torvald said, ‘but I’d rather give thanks to a stubborn Teblor warrior than to any sea god.’
‘Then your faith is sorely misplaced,’ the slavemaster sneered, turning away.
Torvald slowly climbed upright. ‘Karsa,’ he murmured, ‘you should know that Mael’s chosen beast of the sea is the shark. I’ve no doubt at all that Silgar was indeed praying hard while we were out there.’
‘It does not matter,’ Karsa replied. He drew a deep breath of jungle-scented air, slowly released it. ‘I am on land, and I am free, and now I shall walk along this beach, and so taste something of this new land.’
‘I will join you, then, friend, for I believe the light I saw was to our right, slightly above this beach, and I would investigate.’
‘As you like, Torvald Nom.’
They began walking along the strand.
‘Karsa, neither Silgar nor Damisk possesses a shred of decency. I, however, do. A small shred, granted, but one none the less. Thus: thank you.’
‘We have saved each other’s lives, Torvald Nom, and so I am pleased to call you friend, and to think of you as a warrior. Not a Teblor warrior, of course, but a warrior even so.’
The Daru said nothing for a long time. They had moved well out of sight of Silgar and Damisk. The shelf of land to their right was rising in layers of pale stone, the wave-sculpted wall webbed with creepers from the thick growth clinging to the overhang. A break in the clouds overhead cast faint starlight down, reflecting on the virtually motionless water on their left. The sand underfoot was giving way to smooth, undulating stone.
Torvald touched Karsa’s arm and stopped, pointing upslope. ‘There,’ he whispered.
The Teblor softly grunted. A squat, misshapen tower rose above the tangle of brush. Vaguely square and sharply tapering to end at a flat roof, the tower hunched over the beach, a gnarled black mass. Three-quarters of the way up its seaward-facing side was a deeply inset triangular window. Dull yellow light outlined the shutter’s warped slats.
A narrow footpath was visible winding down to the shore, and nearby-five paces beyond the high tide line-lay the collapsed remnants of a fisherboat, the sprung ribs of the hull jutting out to the sides wrapped in seaweed and limned in guano.
‘Shall we pay a visit?’ Torvald asked.
‘Yes,’ Karsa replied, walking towards the footpath.
The Daru quickly moved up beside him. ‘No trophies, though, right?’
Shrugging, the Teblor said, ‘That depends on how we are received.’
‘Strangers on a desolate beach, one of them a giant with a sword almost as tall as me. In the dead of night. Pounding on the door. If we’re met with open arms, Karsa, it will be a miracle. Worse yet, there’s not much likelihood of us sharing a common language-’
‘Too many words,’ Karsa cut in.
They had reached the base of the tower. There was no entrance on the seaward side. The trail curved round to the other side, a well-trod path of limestone dust. Huge slabs of the yellow rock lay in heaps-many of them appearing to have been dragged in from other places and bearing chisel and cut marks. The tower itself was constructed of identical material, though its gnarled aspect remained a mystery until Karsa and Torvald drew closer.
The Daru reached out and ran his fingers along one of the cornerstones. ‘This tower is nothing but fossils,’ he murmured.
‘What are fossils?’ Karsa asked, studying the strange shapes embedded in the stone.
‘Ancient life, turned to stone. I imagine scholars have an explanation for how such transformation occurred. Alas, my education was sporadic and, uh, poorly received. Look, this one-it’s a massive shell of some sort. And there, those look like vertebrae, from some snake-like beast…’
‘They are naught but carvings,’ Karsa asserted. A deep rumbling laugh made them swing round. The man standing at the bend in the path ten paces ahead was huge by lowlander standards, his skin so dark as to seem black. He wore no shirt, only a sleeveless vest of heavy mail stiffened by rust. His muscles were vast, devoid of fat, making his arms, shoulders and torso look like they had been fashioned of taut ropes. He wore a belted loincloth of some colourless material. A hat that seemed made of the torn remnant of a hood covered his head, but Karsa could see thick, grey-shot beard covering the lower half of the man’s face.
No weapons were visible, not even a knife. His teeth flashed in a smile. ‘Screams from the sea, and now a pair of skulkers jabbering in Daru in my tower’s front yard.’ His head tilted upward slightly to regard Karsa for a moment. ‘At first I’d thought you a Fenn, but you’re no Fenn, are you?’
‘I am Teblor-’
‘Teblor! Well, lad, you’re a long way from home, aren’t you?’
Torvald stepped forward. ‘Sir, your command of Daru is impressive, though I am certain I detect a Malazan accent. More, by your colour, I’d hazard you are Napan. Are we then on Quon Tali?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Alas, sir, I am afraid not.’
The man grunted, then turned back up the trail. ‘Carvings, ha!’ Torvald glanced back at Karsa, then, with a shrug, set off after the man.
Karsa followed.
The door was situated on the inland side. The path forked in front of it, one trail leading to the tower and the other to a raised road that ran parallel to the coastline, beyond which was a dark band of forest. The man pushed open the door and ducked inside. Both Torvald and Karsa had involuntarily paused at the fork, staring up at the enormous stone skull that formed the lintel above the low doorway. It was as long as the Teblor was tall, running the entire width of the wall. The rows of dagger-like teeth dwarfed even that of a grey bear.
The man reappeared. ‘Aye, impressive, isn’t it? I’ve collected most of the bastard’s body, too-I should’ve guessed it would be bigger than I’d-’
‘Too many words,’ Karsa cut in. ‘This man wastes his life with stupid tasks. When I decide I am hungry, I will take food.’
Though the Teblor was anticipating a violent reaction from Keeper, and though Karsa’s hand was close to the grip of his bloodsword, he was unable to avoid the blurred fist that lashed out, connecting with his lower ribs on his right side. Bones cracked. The air in his lungs exploded outward. Sagging, Karsa staggered back, incapable of drawing breath, a flood of pain darkening his vision.
He had never been hit so hard in his life. Not even Bairoth Gild had managed to deliver such a blow. Even as consciousness slipped from him, he swung a look of astonished, unfeigned admiration on Keeper. Then he collapsed.
When he awoke, sunlight was streaming through the open doorway. He found himself lying in the stone chips. The air was filled with mortar dust, descending from above. Groaning with the pain of cracked ribs, Karsa slowly sat up. He could hear voices from up near the tower’s ceiling.
The bloodsword still hung from its straps on his back. The Teblor leaned against the stone leg bones of the skeleton as he climbed to his feet. Glancing up, he saw Torvald and Keeper, balanced in the wood framework directly beneath the ceiling, which had already been partly dismantled. The Daru looked down.
‘Karsa! I would invite you up but I suspect this scaffold wouldn’t manage your weight. We’ve made good progress in any case-’
Keeper interrupted with, ‘It’ll take his weight. I winched up the entire spine and that weighs a lot more than a lone Teblor. Get up here, lad, we’re ready to start on the walls.’
Karsa probed the vaguely fist-shaped bruise covering his lower ribs on his right side. It was painful to draw breath; he was unsure whether he would be able to climb, much less work. At the same time, he was reluctant to show weakness, particularly to that muscle-knotted Napan. Grimacing, he reached up to the nearest crossbeam.
The climb was agonizing, torturously slow. High above, the two lowlanders watched in silence. By the time Karsa reached the walkway beneath the ceiling, dragging himself alongside Keeper and Torvald, he was sheathed in sweat.
Keeper was staring at him. ‘Hood take me,’ he muttered, ‘I was surprised that you managed to stand at all, Teblor. I know that I broke ribs-damn’-he lifted a splinted, bandage-swathed hand-‘I broke bones of my own. It’s my temper, you see. It’s always been a problem. I don’t take insults too well. Best just sit there-we’ll manage.’
Karsa sneered. ‘I am of the Uryd tribe. Think you that a lowlander’s tap concerns me?’ He straightened. The ceiling had been a single slab of limestone, slightly projecting beyond the walls. Its removal had involved chiselling away the mortar at the joins, then simply sliding it to one side until it toppled, crashing into pieces down at the foot of the tower. The mortar around the wall’s large, rough blocks had been cut away down to the edge of the scaffold. Karsa set his shoulder against one side and pushed.
Both men snatched at the bloodsword’s straps as the Teblor toppled forward, a huge section of wall vanishing in front of him. A thunderous concussion from below shook the tower. There was a moment when it seemed that Karsa’s weight would drag all three of them over, then Keeper hooked a leg around a pole, grunting as the straps drew taut at the end of one arm. All hung in balance for a heartbeat, then the Napan slowly curled his arm, drawing Karsa back onto the platform.
The Teblor could do nothing to help-he had come close to fainting when he had pushed the stones over, and pain roared through his skull. He slowly sank to his knees.
Gasping, Torvald pulled his hands free of the straps, sat down on the warped boards with a thump.
Keeper laughed. ‘Well, that was easy. Good enough, you’ve both earned breakfast.’
Torvald coughed, then said to Karsa, ‘In case you were wondering, I went back down to the beach at dawn, to retrieve Silgar and Damisk. But they weren’t where we’d left them. I don’t think the slavemaster planned on travelling with us-he likely feared for his life in your company, Karsa, which you have to admit is not entirely unreasonable. I followed their tracks up onto the coast road. They had headed west, suggesting that Silgar knew more of where we are than he’d let on. Fifteen days to Ehrlitan, which is a major port. If they’d gone east, it would have been a month or more to the nearest city.’
‘You talk too much,’ Karsa said.
‘Aye,’ Keeper agreed, ‘he does. You two have had quite a journey-I now know more of it than I’d care to. No cause for worry, though, Teblor. I only believed half of it. Killing a shark, well, the ones that frequent this coast are the big ones, big enough to prove too much for the dhenrabi. All the small ones get eaten, you see. I’ve yet to see one offshore here that’s less than twice your height in length, Teblor. Splitting one’s head open with a single blow? With a wooden sword? In deep water? And what’s that other one? Catfish big enough to swallow a man whole? Hah, a good one.’
Torvald stared at the Napan. ‘Both true. As true as a flooded world and a ship with headless Tiste Andu at the oars!’
‘Well, I believe all that, Torvald. But the shark and the catfish? Do you take me for a fool? Now, let’s climb down and cook up a meal. Let me get a harness on you, Teblor, in case you decide to go to sleep halfway down. We’ll follow.’
The flatfish that Keeper cut up and threw into a broth of starchy tubers had been smoked and salted. By the time Karsa finished his two helpings he was desperately thirsty. Keeper directed them to a natural spring close to the tower, where both he and Torvald went to drink deep of the sweet water.
The Daru then splashed his face and settled down with his back to a fallen palm tree. ‘I have been thinking, friend,’ he said.
‘You should do more of that, instead of talking, Torvald Nom.’
‘It’s a family curse. My father was even worse. Oddly enough, some lines of the Nom House are precisely opposite-you couldn’t get a word out of them even under torture. I have a cousin, an assassin-’
‘I thought you had been thinking.’
‘Oh, right. So I was. Ehrlitan. We should head there.’
‘Why? I saw nothing of value in any of the cities we travelled through on Genabackis. They stink, they’re too loud, and the lowlanders scurry about like cliff-mice.’
‘It’s a port, Karsa. A Malazan port. That means there are ships setting out from it, heading for Genabackis. Isn’t it time to go home, friend? We could work for our passage. Me, I’m ready to enter the embrace of my dear family, the long-lost child returned, wiser, almost reformed. As for you, I’d think your tribe would be, uh, delighted to have you back. You’ve knowledge now, and they are in dire need of that, unless you want what happened to the Sunyd to happen to the Uryd.’
Karsa frowned at the Daru for a moment, then he looked away. ‘I shall indeed return to my people. One day. But Urugal guides my steps still-I can feel him. Secrets have power so long as they remain secret. Bairoth Gild’s words, to which I gave little thought at the time. But now, that has changed. I am changed, Torvald Nom. Mistrust has taken root in my soul, and when I find Urugal’s stone face in my mind, when I feel his will warring with my own, I feel my own weakness. Urugal’s power over me lies in what I do not know, in secrets-secrets my own god would keep from me. I have ceased fighting this war within my soul. Urugal guides me and I follow, for our journey is to truth.’
Torvald studied the Teblor with lidded eyes. ‘You may not like what you find, Karsa.’
‘I suspect you are right, Torvald Nom.’
The Daru stared for a moment longer, then he climbed to his feet and brushed sand from his ragged tunic. ‘Keeper has the opinion that it isn’t safe around you. He says it’s as if you’re dragging a thousand invisible chains behind you, and whatever’s on the ends of each one of them is filled with venom.’
Karsa felt his blood grow cold within him.
Torvald must have noted a change in the Teblor’s expression, for he raised both hands. ‘Wait! He only spoke in passing, it was nothing really, friend. He was simply telling me to be careful in your company-as if I didn’t already know that. You are Hood’s own lodestone-to your enemies, that is. In any case, Karsa, I’d advise you not to cross that man. Pound for pound he’s the strongest man I’ve ever met-and that includes you. Besides, while you’ve regained some of your old strength, you’ve a half-dozen broken ribs-’
‘Enough words, Torvald Nom. I do not intend to attack Keeper. His vision troubles me, that is all. For I have shared it, in my dreams. Now you understand why I must seek out the truth.’
‘Very well.’ Torvald lowered his hands, then sighed. ‘Still, I’d advise Ehrlitan. We need clothes and-’
‘Keeper spoke the truth when he said I am dangerous to be around, Torvald Nom. And that danger is likely to increase. I will join you on the journey to Ehrlitan. Then, I will see to it that you find a ship, so that you may return to your family. When this is done, we shall part ways. I shall, however, keep the truth of your friendship with me.’
The Daru grinned. ‘It’s settled, then. Ehrlitan. Come, let us return to the tower, so we may give our thanks to Keeper for his hospitality.’
They began making their way along the trail. ‘Rest assured,’ Torvald continued, ‘that I shall hold the truth of your friendship in me as well, though it’s a truth no-one else is likely to believe.’
‘Why is that?’ Karsa asked.
‘I was never very good at acquiring friends. Acquaintances, minions and the like-that was easy. But my big mouth-’
‘Sends potential friends fleeing. Yes, I understand. Clearly.’
‘Ah, now I see. You want to throw me on the first ship just to get away from me.’
‘There is that,’ Karsa replied.
‘In keeping with the pathetic state of my life, it makes sense all right.’
After a moment, as they rounded a bend and came within sight of the tower, Karsa scowled and said, ‘Making light of words is still difficult-’
‘All that talk of friendship made for a momentary discomfort. You did well to slide away from it.’
‘No, for what I would say is this. On the ship, when I hung in chains from the mast, you were my only hold on this world. Without you and your endless words, Torvald Nom, the madness I had feigned would have become a madness in truth. I was a Teblor warleader. I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast. And from this, I have come to understand what it is to possess regrets. Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord. Even the Rathyd, whom I have greatly weakened. When I return on my old path, back into the lands of the Teblor, there are wounds that I shall need to mend. And so, when you say it is time to return to your family, Torvald Nom, I understand and my heart is gladdened.’
Keeper was sitting on a three-legged stool outside the tower’s doorway. A large sack with shoulder-straps rested at his feet, along with two stoppered gourds glittering with condensation. He had in his unbandaged hand a small bag, which he tossed towards Torvald as the two men arrived.
The bag jingled as the Daru caught it. Brows lifting, Torvald asked, ‘What-’
‘Silver jakatas, mostly,’ Keeper said. ‘Some local coin, too, but those are of very high denomination, so be careful of showing them. Ehrlitan’s cutpurses are legendary.’
‘Keeper-’
The Napan waved a hand. ‘Listen, lad. When a man arranges his own death, he needs to plan ahead. A life of anonymity doesn’t come as cheap as you’d imagine. I emptied half of Aren’s treasury a day before my tragic drowning. Now, you might manage to kill me and try to find it, but it’d be hopeless. So thank me for my generosity and get on your way.’
‘One day,’ Karsa said, ‘I shall return here and repay you.’
‘For the coin or the broken ribs?’
The Teblor simply smiled.
Keeper laughed, then rose and ducked through the doorway. A moment later, they could hear him climbing the frame.
Torvald collected the pack, drawing the straps over his shoulders, then handed one of the gourds to Karsa.
They set off down the road.