‘I really should hate you,’ she said. ‘I’m sure most people who meet you hate you, eventually.’
The Toblakai snorted. ‘The Emperor will.’
‘So now I must walk with you. Now I must watch you die.’
From outside there came shouts.
‘They have discovered the escape,’ Karsa Orlong said, collecting his sword. ‘Soon they will come for us. Are you ready, Samar Dev?’
‘No.’
The water had rotted her feet, he saw. White as the skin of a corpse, shreds hanging loose to reveal gaping red wounds, and as she drew them onto the altar top and tucked them under her, the Errant suddenly understood something. About humanity, about the seething horde in its cruel avalanche through history.
The taste of ashes filling his mouth, he looked away, studied the runnels of water streaming down the stone walls of the chamber. ‘It rises,’ he said, looking back at her.
‘He was never as lost as he thought he was,’ Feather Witch said, reaching up distractedly to twirl the filthy strands of her once-golden hair. ‘Are you not eager, dear god of mine? This empire is about to kneel at your feet. And,’ she suddenly smiled, revealing brown teeth, ‘at mine.’
Yes, at yours, Feather Witch. Those rotting, half-dead appendages that you could have used to run. Long ago. The empire kneels, and lips quiver forth. A blossom kiss. So cold, so like paste, and the smell, oh, the smell…
‘Is it not time?’ she asked, with an oddly coy glance.
‘For what?’
‘You were a consort. You know the ways of love. Teach me now.’
‘Teach you?’
‘I am unbroken. I have never lain with man or woman.’
‘A lie,’ the Errant replied. ‘Gribna, the lame slave in the Hiroth village. You were very young. He used you. Often and badly. It is what has made you what you now are, Feather Witch.’
And he saw her eyes shy away, saw the frown upon her brow, and realized the awful truth that she had not remembered. Too young, too wide-eyed. And then, every moment buried in a deep hole at the pit of her soul. She, by the Abyss, did not remember. ‘Feather Witch-’
.’Go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t need anything from you right now. I have Udinaas.’
‘You have lost Udinaas. You never had him. Listen, please-’
‘He’s alive! Yes he is! And all the ones who wanted him are dead-the sisters, all dead! Could you have imagined that?’
‘You fool. Silchas Ruin is coming here. To lay this city to waste. To destroy it utterly-’
‘He cannot defeat Rhulad Sengar,’ she retorted. ‘Not even Silchas Ruin can do that!’
The Errant said nothing to that bold claim. Then he turned away. ‘I saw gangrene at your feet, Feather Witch. My temple, as you like to call it, reeks of rotting flesh.’
‘Then heal me.’
‘The water rises,’ he said, and this time the statement seemed to burgeon within him, filling his entire being. The water rises. Why? ‘Hannan Mosag seeks the demon god, the one trapped in the ice. That ice, Feather Witch, is melting. Water… everywhere. Water…’
By the Holds, was it possible? Even this? But no, I trapped the bastard. I trapped him!
‘He took the finger,’ Feather Witch said behind him. ‘He took it and thought that was enough, to just take it. But how could I go where he has gone? I couldn’t. So I needed him, yes. I needed him, and he was never as lost as he thought he was.’
And what of the other one?’ the Errant asked, still with his back to her.
‘Never found-’
The Elder God whirled round. ‘Where is the other finger?’
He saw her eyes widen.
Is it possible? Is it-
He found himself in the corridor, the water at his hips, though he passed through it effortlessly. We have come to the moment-Icarium walks ~ where? A foreign army and a horrifying mage approaches. Silchas Ruin wings down from the north with eyes of fire. Hannan Mosag ~ the fool-crawls his way to Settle Lake even as the demon god stirs-and she says he was never as lost as he thought he was.
Almost dawn, somewhere beyond these sagging, weeping walls.
An empire on its knees.
The blossom kiss, but moments away.
The word came to Varat Taun, newly appointed Finadd in the Palace Guard, that Icarium, along with Taralack Veed and Senior Assessor, had escaped. At that statement his knees had weakened, a flood rushing through him, but it was a murky, confused flood. Relief, yes, at what had been averted-at least for the moment, for might Icarium not return?-relief that was quickly engulfed by his growing dread for this invading army encamped barely two leagues away.
There would be a siege, and with virtually no-one left to hold the walls it would be a short one. And then the Eternal Domicile itself would be assailed, and by the time all was done, Emperor Rhulad Sengar would likely be standing alone, surrounded by the enemy.
An Emperor without an empire.
Five Letherii armies on the Bolkando borderlands far to the east had seemingly vanished. Not a word from a single mage among those forces. They had set out, under a competent if not brilliant commander, to crush the Bolkando and their allies. That should have been well within the woman’s capabilities. The last report had come half a day before the armies clashed.
What else could anyone conclude? Those five armies were shattered. The enemy marches on, into the empire’s very heart. And what has happened east of Drene? More silence, and Atri-Preda Bivatt was considered by most as the next Freda of the Imperial Armies.
Rebellion in Bluerose, riots in every city. Wholesale desertion of entire units and garrisons. The Tiste Edur vanishing like ghosts, fleeing back to their homeland, no doubt. By the Errant, why did I not ride with Yan Tovis? Return to my wife-I am a fool, who will die here, in this damned palace. Die for nothing.
He stood, positioned beside the throne room’s entrance-way, and watched from under the rim of his helm the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths pace in front of the throne. Filthy with blood and spilled fluids from a dozen dead challengers, a dozen cut through in a whirlwind frenzy, Rhulad shrieking as his sword whirled and chopped and severed and seemed to drink in the pain and blood of its victims.
And now, dawn was beginning on this day, and the sleepless Emperor paced. Blackened coins shifting on his ravaged face as emotions worked his features in endless cycles of disbelief, distress and fear.
Before Rhulad Sengar, standing motionless, was the Chancellor.
Thrice, the Emperor paused to glare at Triban Gnol. Thrice he made as if to speak, only to resume his pacing, the sword-tip dragging across the tiles.
His own people had abandoned him. He had inadvertently drowned his own mother and father. Killed all of his brothers. Driven the wife he had stolen to suicide. Been betrayed by the First and only Concubine he had possessed, Nisall.
An economy in ruins, all order crumbling, and armies invading.
And his only answer was to force hapless foreigners onto the sands of the arena and butcher them.
Pathos or grand comedy?
It will not do, Emperor. All that blood and guts covering you will not do. When you are but the hands holding the sword, the sword rules, and the sword knows nothing but what it was made for. It can achieve no resolutions, can manage no subtle diplomacy, can solve none of the problems afflicting people in their tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.
Leave a sword to rule an empire and the empire falls. Amidst war, amidst anarchy, amidst a torrent of blood and a sea of misery.
Coin-clad, the wielder of the sword paced out the true extent of his domain, here in this throne room.
Halting, facing the Chancellor once more. ‘What has happened?’
A child’s question. A child’s voice. Varat Taun felt his heart give slightly, felt its hardness suddenly soften. A child.
The Chancellor’s reply was measured, so reassuring that Varat Taun very nearly laughed at the absurdity of that tone. ‘We are never truly conquered, Emperor. You will stand, because none can remove you. The invaders will see that, understand that. They will have done with their retribution. Will they occupy? Unknown. If not them, then the coalition coming from the eastern kingdoms will-and such coalitions inevitably break apart, devour themselves. They too will be able to do nothing to you, Emperor.’
Rhulad Sengar stared at Triban Gnol, his mouth working but no sounds coming forth.
‘I have begun,’ the Chancellor resumed, ‘preparing our conditional surrender. To the Malazans. At the very least, they will enforce peace in the city, an end to the riots. Likely working in consort with the Patriotists. Once order is restored, we can begin the task of resurrecting the economy, minting-’
‘Where are my people?’ Rhulad Sengar asked.
‘They will return, Emperor. I am sure of it.’
Rhulad turned to face the throne. And suddenly went perfectly still. ‘It is empty,’ he whispered. ‘Look!’ He spun round, pointing his sword back at the throne. ‘Do you see? It is empty!’
‘Sire-’
‘Like my father’s chair in our house! Our house in the village! Empty!’
‘The village is no longer there, Emperor-’
‘But the chair remains! I see it! With my own eyes-my father’s chair! The paint fades in the sun. The wood joins split in the rain. Crows perch on the weathered arms! I see it!’
The shout echoed in silence then. Not a guard stirring. The Chancellor with bowed head, and who knew what thoughts flickered behind the serpent’s eyes?
Surrender. Conditional. Rhulad Sengar remains. Rhulad Sengar and, oh yes, Chancellor Triban Gnol. And the Patriotists. ‘We cannot be conquered. We are for ever. Step into our world and it devours you.’
Rhulad’s broad shoulders slowly sagged. Then he walked up to the throne, turned about and sat down. Looked out with bleak eyes. In a croaking voice he asked, ‘Who remains?’
The Chancellor bowed. ‘But one, Emperor.’
‘One? There should be two.’
‘The challenger known as Icarium has fled, Emperor. Into the city. We are hunting him down.’
Liar.
But Rhulad Sengar seemed indifferent, his head turning to one side, eyes lowering until they fixed on the gore-spattered sword. ‘The Toblakai.’
‘Yes, Emperor.’
‘Who murdered Binadas. My brother.’
‘Indeed, sire.’
The head slowly lifted. ‘Is it dawn?’
‘It is.’
Rhulad’s command was soft as a breath. ‘Bring him.’
They let the poor fool go once he had shown them the recessed door leading under the city wall. It was, of course, locked, and while the rest of the squads waited in the slowly fading darkness-seeking whatever cover they could find and it wasn’t much-Fiddler and Cuttle went down into the depression to examine the door.
‘Made to be broken down,’ Cuttle muttered, ‘so it’s like the lad said-we go in and then the floodgates open and we drown. Fid, I don’t see a way to do this, not quietly enough-so as no-one hears and figures out we’ve taken the trap.’
Fiddler scratched at his white beard. ‘Maybe we could dismantle the entire door, frame and all.’
‘We ain’t got the time.’
‘No. We pull back and hide out for the day, then do it tomorrow night.’
‘The Adjunct should be showing up by then. Keneb wants us first in and he’s right, we’ve earned it.’
At that moment they heard a thump from behind the door, then the low scrape of the bar being lifted.
The two Malazans moved to either side, quickly cocking their crossbows.
A grinding sound, then the door was pushed open.
The figure that climbed into view was no Letherii soldier. It was wearing plain leather armour that revealed, without question, that it was a woman, and on her face an enamel mask with a modest array of painted sigils. Two swords strapped across her back. One stride, then two. A glance to Fiddler on her right, then to Cuttle on her left. Pausing, brushing dirt from her armour, then setting out. Onto the killing field, and away.
Bathed in sweat, Fiddler settled back into a sitting position, the crossbow trembling in his hands.
Cuttle made a warding gesture, then sat down as well. ‘Hood’s breath was on my neck, Fid. Right there, right then. I know, she didn’t even reach for those weapons, didn’t even twitch…’
‘Aye,’ Fid answered, the word whispered like a blessing. A Hood-damned Seguleh. High ranked, too. We’d never have got our shots off-no way. Our heads would have rolled like a pair of oversized snowballs.
‘I looked away, Fid. I looked right down at the ground when she turned my way.’
‘Me too.’
‘And that’s why we’re still alive.’
‘Aye.’
Cuttle turned and peered down into the dark tunnel. ‘We don’t have to wait till tomorrow night after all.’
‘Go back to the others, Cuttle. Get Keneb to draw ‘em up. I’m heading in to check the other end. If it’s unguarded and quiet, well and good, If not…’
‘Aye, Fid.’
The sergeant dropped down into the tunnel.
He moved through the dark as fast as he could without making too much noise. The wall overhead was damned thick and he’d gone thirty paces before he saw the grey blur of the exit at the end of a sharp slope. Crossbow in hands, Fiddler edged forward.
He need not have worried.
The tunnel opened into a cramped blockhouse with no ceiling. One bench lined the wall to his right. Three bodies were sprawled on the dusty stone floor, bleeding out from vicious wounds. Should’ve averted your eyes, soldiers. Assuming she even gave them the time to decide either way-she’d wanted out, after all.
The door opposite him was ajar and Fiddler crept to it, looked out through the crack. A wide street, littered with rubbish.
They’d been listening to the riots half the night, and it was clear that mobs had swept through here, if not this night then other nights. The garrison blocks opposite were gutted, the windows soot-stained. Better and better.
He turned round and hastened back down the tunnel.
At the other end he found Cuttle, Faradan Sort and Fist Keneb, all standing a few paces in from the door.
Fiddler explained to them what he had found. Then said, ‘We got to go through right away, I think. Eight hundred marines to come through and that’ll take a while.’
Keneb nodded. ‘Captain Faradan Sort.’
‘Sir.’
‘Take four squads through and establish flanking positions. Send one squad straight across to the nearest barracks to see if they are indeed abandoned. If so, that will be our staging area. From there, I will lead the main body to the gate, seize and secure it. Captain, you and four squads will strike into the city, as far as you can go, causing trouble all the way-take extra munitions for that.’
‘Our destination?’
‘The palace.’
‘Aye, sir. Fiddler, collect Gesler and Hellian and Urb-you’re the first four-and take your squads through. At a damned run if you please.’
In the grey light of early dawn, four figures emerged from a smear of blurred light twenty paces from the dead Azath Tower behind the Old Palace. As the portal swirled shut behind them, they stood, looking round.
Hedge gave Quick Ben a light push to one side, somewhere between comradely affection and irritation. ‘Told you, it’s reunion time, wizard.’
‘Where in Hood’s name are we?’ Quick Ben demanded.
‘We’re in Letheras,’ Seren Pedac said. ‘Behind the Old Palace-but something’s wrong.’
Trull Sengar wrapped his arms about himself, his face drawn with the pain of freshly healed wounds, his eyes filled with a deeper distress.
Hedge felt some of his anticipation dim like a dying oil lamp as he studied the Tiste Edur. The poor bastard. A brother murdered in front of his eyes. Then, the awkward goodbye with Onrack-joy and sadness there in plenty, seeing his old friend and the woman at his side-a woman Onrack had loved for so long. So long? Damned near incomprehensible, that’s how long.
But now-Trull Sengar.’
The Tiste Edur slowly looked over.
Hedge shot Quick Ben a glance, then he said, ‘We’ve a mind to escort you and Seren. To her house.’
‘This city is assailed,’ Trull Sengar said. ‘My youngest brother-the Emperor-’
‘That can all wait,’ Hedge cut in. He paused, trying to figure out how to say what he meant, then said, ‘Your friend Onrack stole a woman’s heart, and it was all there.
In her eyes, I mean. The answer, that is. And if you’d look, just look, Trull Sengar, into the eyes of Seren Pedac, well-’
‘For Hood’s sake,’ Quick Ben sighed. ‘He means you and Seren need to get alone before anything else, and we’re going to make sure that happens. All right?’
The surprise on Seren Pedac’s face was almost comical.
But Trull Sengar then nodded.
Hedge regarded Quick Ben once again. ‘You recovered enough in case we walk into trouble?’
‘Something your sharpers can’t handle? Yes, probably. Maybe. Get a sharper in each hand, Hedge.’
‘Good enough… since you’re a damned idiot,’ Hedge replied. ‘Seren Pedac-you should know, I’m well envious of this Tiste Edur here, but anyway. Is your house far?’
‘No, it is not, Hedge of the Bridgeburners.’
‘Then let’s get out of this spooky place.’
Silts swirled up round his feet, spun higher, engulfing his shins, then whirled away like smoke on the current. Strange pockets of luminosity drifted past, morphing as if subjected to unseen pressures in this dark, unforgiving world.
Bruthen Trana, who had been sent to find a saviour, walked an endless plain, the silts thick and gritty. He stumbled against buried detritus, tripped on submerged roots. He crossed current-swept rises of hardened clay from which jutted polished bones of long-dead leviathans. He skirted the wreckage of sunken ships, the ribs of the hulls splayed out and cargo scattered about. And as he walked, he thought about his life and the vast array of choices he had made, others he had refused to make.
No wife, no single face to lift into his mind’s eye. He had been a warrior for what seemed all his life. Fighting alongside blood kin and comrades closer than any blood kin. He had seen them die or drift away. He had, he realized now, watched his entire people pulled apart. With the conquest, with the cold-blooded, anonymous nightmare that was Lether. As for the Letherii themselves, no, he did not hate them. More like pity and yes, compassion, for they were as trapped in the nightmare as anyone else. The rapacious desperation, the gnawing threat of falling, of drowning beneath the ever-rising, ever-onrushing torrent that was a culture that could never look back, could not even slow its headlong plunge into some gleaming future that-if it came at all-would ever only exist for but a privileged few.
This eternal seabed offered its own commentary, and it was one that threatened to drag him down into the silts, enervated beyond all hope of continuing, of even moving. Cold, crushing, this place was like history’s own weight-history not of a people or a civilization, but of the entire world.
Why was he still walking? What saviour could liberate him from all of this? He should have remained in Letheras. Free to launch an assault on Karos Invictad and his Patriotists, free to annihilate the man and his thugs. And then he could have turned to the Chancellor. Imagining his hands on Triban Gnol’s throat was most satisfying-for as long as the image lasted, which was never long enough. A bloom of silts up into his eyes, another hidden object snagging his foot.
And here, now, looming before him, pillars of stone. The surfaces, he saw, cavorted with carvings, unrecognizable sigils so intricate they spun and shifted before his eyes.
As he drew closer, silts gusted ahead, and Bruthen Trana saw a figure climbing into view. Armour green with verdigris and furred with slime. A closed helm covering its face. In one gauntleted hand was a Letherii sword.
And a voice spoke in the Tiste Edur’s head: ‘You have walked enough, Ghost.’
Bruthen Trana halted. ‘I am not a ghost in truth-’
‘You are, stranger. Your soul has been severed from now cold, now rotting flesh. You are no more than what stands here, before me. A ghost.’
Somehow, the realization did not surprise him. Hannan Mosag’s legacy of treachery made all alliances suspect. And he had, he realized, felt… severed. For a long time, yes. The Warlock King likely did not waste any time in cutting the throat of Bruthen Trana’s helpless body.
‘Then,’ he said, ‘what is left for me?’
‘One thing, Ghost. You are here to summon him. To send him back.’
‘But was not his soul severed as well?’
‘His flesh and bones are here, Ghost. And in this place, there is power. For here you will find the forgotten gods, the last hold’ ing of their names. Know this, Ghost, were we to seek to defy you, to refuse your summoning, we could. Even with what you carry.’
‘Will you then refuse me?’ Bruthen Trana asked, and if the answer was yes, then he would laugh. To have come all this way. To have sacrificed his life…
‘No. We understand the need. Better, perhaps, than you.’
The armoured warrior lifted his free hand. All but the fore
most of the metal-clad fingers folded. ‘Go there,’ it said, pointing towards a pillar. ‘The side with but one name. Draw forth that which you possess of his flesh and bone. Speak the name so written on the stone.’
Bruthen Trana walked slowly to the standing stone, went round to the side with the lone carving. And read thereon the name inscribed: ‘ “Brys Beddict, Saviour of the Empty Hold.” I summon you.’
The face of the stone, cleaned here, seeming almost fresh, all at once began to ripple, then bulge in places, the random shapes and movement coalescing to create a humanoid shape, pushing out from the stone. An arm came free, then shoulder, then head, face-eyes closed, features twisted as if in pain-upper torso. A leg. The second arm-Bruthen saw that two fingers were missing on that hand.
He frowned. Two?
As the currents streamed, Brys Beddict was driven out from the pillar. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, was almost swallowed in billowing silts.
The armoured warrior arrived, carrying a scabbarded sword, which he pushed point-first into the seabed beside the Letherii.
‘Take it, Saviour. Feel the currents-they are eager. Go, you have little time.’
Still on his hands and knees, head hanging, Brys Beddict reached out for the weapon. As soon as his hand closed about the scabbard a sudden rush of the current lifted the man from the seabed. He spun in a flurry of silts and then was gone.
Bruthen Trana stood, motionless. That current had rushed right through him, unimpeded. As it would through a ghost.
All at once he felt bereft. He’d not had a chance to say a word to Brys Beddict, to tell him what needed to be done. An Emperor, to cut down once more. An empire, to resurrect.
‘You are done here, Ghost.’
Bruthen Trana nodded.
‘Where will you go?’
‘There is a house. I lost it. I would find it again.’
‘Then you shall.’
‘Oh, Padderunt, look! It’s twitching!’
The old man squinted over at Selush through a fog of smoke. She was doing that a lot of late. Bushels of rustleaf ever since Tehol Beddict’s arrest. ‘You’ve dressed enough dead to know what the lungs of people who do too much of that look like, Mistress.’
‘Yes. No different from anyone else’s.’
‘Unless they got the rot, the cancer.’
‘Lungs with the rot all look the same and that is most certainly true. Now, did you hear what I said?’
‘It twitched,’ Padderunt replied, twisting in his chair to peer up at the bubbly glass jar on the shelf that contained a stubby little severed finger suspended in pink goo.
‘It’s about time, too. Go,to Rucket,’ Selush said between ferocious pulls on the mouthpiece, her substantial chest swelling as if it was about to burst. ‘And tell her.’
‘That it twitched.’
‘Yes!’
‘All right.’ He set down his cup. ‘Rustleaf tea, Mistress.’
‘I’d drown.’
‘Not inhaled. Drunk, in civil fashion.’
‘You’re still here, dear servant, and I don’t like that at all.’
He rose. ‘On my way, O enwreathed one.’
She had managed to push the corpse of Tanal Yathvanar to one side, and it now lay beside her as if cuddled in sleep, the bloated, blotched face next to her own.
There would be no-one coming for her. This room was forbidden to all but Tanal Yathvanar, and unless some disaster struck this compound in the next day or two, leading Karos Invictad to demand Tanal’s presence and so seek him out, Janath knew it would be too late for her.
Chained to the bed, legs spread wide, fluids leaking from her. She stared up at the ceiling, strangely comforted by the body lying at her side. Its stillness, the coolness of the skin, the flaccid lack of resistance from the flesh. She could feel the shrivelled thing that was his penis pressing against her right thigh. And the beast within her was pleased.
She needed water. She needed that above all else. A mouthful would be enough, would give her the strength to once again begin tugging at the chains, dragging the links against the wood, dreaming of the entire frame splintering beneath her-but it would take a strong man to do that, she knew, strong and healthy. Her dream was nothing more than that, but she held on to it as her sole amusement that would, she hoped, follow her into death. Yes, right up until the last moment.
It would be enough.
Tanal Yathvanar, her tormentor, was dead. But that would be no escape from her. She meant to resume her pursuit, her soul-sprung free of this flesh-demonic in its hunger, in the cruelty it wanted to inflict on whatever whimpering, cowering thing was left of Tanal Yathvanar.
A mouthful of water. That would be so sweet.
She could spit it into the staring face beside her.
Coins to the belligerent multitude brought a larger, more belligerent multitude. And, at last, trepidation awoke in Karos Invictad, the Invigilator of the Patriotists. He sent servants down into the hiddenmost crypts below, to drag up chest after chest. In the compound his agents were exhausted, now simply flinging handfuls of coins over the walls since the small sacks were long gone. And a pressure was building against those walls that, it now seemed, no amount of silver and gold could relieve.
He sat in his office, trying to comprehend that glaring truth. Of course, he told himself, there were simply too many in the mob. Not enough coins was the problem. They’d fought like jackals over the sacks, had they not?
He had done and was doing what the Emperor should have done. Emptied the treasury and buried the people in riches. That would have purchased peace, yes. An end to the riots. Everyone returning to their homes, businesses opening once more, food on the stalls and whores beckoning from windows and plenty of ale and wine to flow down throats-all the pleasures that purchased apathy and obedience. Yes, festivals and games and Drownings and that would have solved all of this. Along with a few quiet arrests and assassinations.
But he was running out of money. His money. Hard-won, a hoard amassed solely by his own genius. And they were taking it all.
Well, he would start all over again. Stealing it back from the pathetic bastards. Easy enough for one such as Karos Invictad.
Tanal Yathvanar had disappeared, likely hiding with his prisoner, and he could rot in her arms for all that the Invigilator cared. Oh, the man schemed to overthrow him, Karos knew. Pathetic, simplistic schemes. But they would come to naught, because the next time Karos saw the man, he would kill him. A knife through the eye. Quick, precise, most satisfying.
He could hear the shouts for Tehol Beddict, somewhat less fierce now-and that was, oddly enough, vaguely disturbing. Did they no longer want to tear him to pieces? Was he indeed hearing cries for the man’s release?
Desperate knocking on his office door.
‘Enter.’
An agent appeared, his face white. ‘Sir, the main block-’
‘Are we breached?’
‘No-’
‘Then go away-wait, check on Tehol Beddict. Make sure he’s regained consciousness. I want him able to walk when we march to the Drownings.’
The man stared at him for a long moment, then he said, ‘Yes sir.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No, the main block-’ He gestured out into the corridor.
‘What is it, you damned fool?’
‘It’s filling with rats, sir!’
Rats?
‘They’re coming from over the walls-we throw coins and rats come back. Thousands!’
‘That guild no longer exists!’
The shriek echoed like a woman’s scream.
The agent blinked, and all at once his tone changed, steadied. ‘The mob, sir, they’re calling for Tehol Beddict’s release-can you not hear it? They’re calling him a hero, a revolutionary-’
Karos Invictad slammed his sceptre down on his desk and rose. ‘Is this what my gold paid for?’
Feather Witch sensed the rebirth of Brys Beddict. She stopped plucking at the strips of skin hanging from her toes, drawing a deep breath as she felt him rushing closer, ever closer. So fast!
Crooning under her breath, she closed her eyes and conjured in her mind that severed finger. That fool the Errant had a lot to learn, still. About his formidable High Priestess. The finger still belonged to her, still held drops of her blood from when she had pushed it up inside her. Month after month, like a waterlogged stick in a stream, soaking her up.
Brys Beddict belonged to her, and she would use him well.
The death that was a non-death, for Rhulad Sengar, the insane Emperor. The murder of Hannan Mosag. And the Chancellor. And everyone else she didn’t like.
And then… the handsome young man kneeling before her as she sat on her raised temple throne-in the new temple that would be built, sanctified to the Errant-kneeling, yes, while she spread her legs and invited him in. To kiss the place where his finger had been. To drive his tongue deep.
The future was so very bright, so very-
Feather Witch’s eyes snapped open. Disbelieving.
As she felt Brys Beddict being pulled away, pulled out of her grasp. By some other force.
Pulled away!
She screamed, lurching forward on the dais, hands plunging into the floodwater-as if to reach down into the current and grasp hold of him once, more-but it was deeper than she’d remembered. Unbalanced, she plunged face-first into the water. Involuntarily drew in a lungful of the cold, biting fluid.
Eyes staring into the darkness, as she thrashed about, her lungs contracting again and again, new lungfuls of water, one after another.
Deep-where was up?
A knee scraped the stone floor and she sought to bring her legs under her, but they were numb, heavy as logs-they would not work. One hand then, onto the floor, pushing upward-but not high enough to break the surface. The other hand, then, trying to guide her knees together-but one would drift out as soon as she left it seeking the other.
The darkness outside her eyes flooded in. Into her mind.
And, with blessed relief, she ceased struggling.
She would dream now. She could feel the sweet lure of that dream-almost within reach-and all the pain in her chest was gone-she could breathe this, she could. In and out, in and out, and then she no longer had to do even that. She could grow still, sinking down onto the slimy floor.
Darkness in and out, the dream drifting closer, almost within reach.
Almost…
The Errant stood in the waist-deep water, his hand on her back. He waited, even though her struggles had ceased. Sometimes, it was true, a nudge was not enough.
The malformed, twisted thing that was Hannan Mosag crawled up the last street before the narrow, crooked alley that led to Settle Lake. Roving bands had come upon the wretched Tiste Edur in the darkness before dawn and had given him wide berth, chased away by his laughter.
Soon, everything would return to him. All of his power, purest Kurald Emurlahn, and he would heal this mangled body, heal the scars of his mind. With the demon-god freed of the ice and bound to his will once more, who could challenge him?
Rhulad Sengar could remain Emperor-that hardly mattered, did it? The Warlock King would not be frightened of him, not any more. And, to crush him yet further, he possessed a certain note, a confession-oh, the madness unleashed then!
Then, these damned invaders-well, they were about to find themselves without a fleet.
And the river shall rise, flooding, a torrent to cleanse this accursed city. Of foreigners. Of the Letherii themselves. 1 will see them all drowned.
Reaching the mouth of the alley, he dragged himself into its gloom, pleased to be out of the dawn’s grey light, and the stench of the pond wafted down to him. Rot, dissolution, the dying of the ice. At long last, all his ambitions were about to come true.
Crawling over the slick, mould-slimed cobblestones. He could hear thousands.in the streets, somewhere near. Some name being cried out like a chant. Disgust filled Hannan Mosag. He never wanted anything to do with these Letherii. No, he would have raised an impenetrable wall between them and his people. He would have ruled over the tribes, remaining in the north, where the rain fell like mist and the forests of sacred trees embraced every village.
There would have been peace, for all the Tiste Edur.
Well, he had sent them all back north, had he not? He had begun his preparations. And soon he would join them, as Warlock King. And he would make his dream a reality.
And Rhulad Sengar? Well, 1 leave him a drowned empire, a wasteland of mud and dead trees and rotting corpses. Rule well, Emperor.
He found himself scrabbling against a growing stream of icy water that was working its way down the alley, the touch numbing his hands, knees and feet. He began slipping. Cursing under his breath, Hannan Mosag paused, staring down at the water flowing round him.
From up ahead there came a loud crack! and the Warlock King smiled. My child stirs.
Drawing upon the power of the shadows in this alley, he resumed his journey.
‘Ah, the fell guardians,’ Ormly said as he strode to the muddy bank of Settle Lake. The Champion Rat Catcher had come in from the north side, where he’d been busy in Creeper District, hiring random folk to cry out the name of the empire’s great revolutionary, the hero of heroes, the this and that and all the rest. Tehol Beddict! He’s taken all the money back-from all the rich slobs in their estates! He’s going to give it all to every one of you-he’s going to clear all your debts! And are you listening? I’ve more rubbish to feed you-wait, come back! True, he’d just added on that last bit.
What a busy night! And then a runner from Selush had brought him the damned sausage that a man had once used to pick his nose or something.
All right, there was some disrespect in that and it wasn’t worthy, not of Brys Beddict-the Hero’s very own brother!-nor of himself, Ormly of the Rats. So, enough of that, then.
‘Oh, look, sweetcakes, it’s him.’
‘Who, dove-cookie?’
‘Why, I forget his name. Tha’s who.’
Ormly scowled at the pair lolling on the bank like a couple of gaping fish. ‘I called you guardians? You’re both drunk!’
‘You’d be too,’ Ursto Hoobutt said, ‘if ‘n you had to listen to this simperin’ witch ‘ere.’ He wagged his head to mime his wife as he said: ‘Ooh, I wanna baby! A big baby, with only one upper lip but a bottom one too to clamp onto you know where an’ get even bigger! Ooh, syrup-smoochies, oh, please? Can I? Can I? Can I!’
‘You poor man,’ Ormly commiserated, walking up to them. He paused upon seeing the heaved and cracked slabs of ice crowding the centre of the lake. ‘It’s pushing, is it?’
‘Took your time, too,’ Pinosel muttered, casting her husband her third glowering look since Ormly had arrived. She swished whatever was in the jug in her left hand, then tilted it back to drink deep. Then wiped at her mouth, leaned forward and glared up at Ormly from lowered brows. ‘Ain’t gonna have no jus’ one upper lip, neither. Gonna be healthy-’
‘Really, Pinosel,’ Ormly said, ‘the likelihood of that-’
‘You don’t know nothing!’
‘All right, maybe I don’t. Not about the likes of you two, anyway. But here’s what I do know. In the Old Palace there’s a panel in the baths that was painted about six hundred years ago. Of Settle Lake or something a lot like it, with buildings in the background. And who’s sitting there in the grasses on the bank, sharing a jug? Why, an ugly woman and an even uglier man-both looking a lot like you two!’
‘Watchoo yer callin’ ugly,’ Pinosel said, lifting her head with an effort, taking a deep breath to compose her features, then patting at her crow’s nest hair. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I’ve had better days.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ mumbled Ursto.
‘An’ I ‘eard that! An’ oose fault is that, porker-nose?’
‘Only the people that ain’t no more ‘ere t’worship us an’ all that.’
“Zactly!’
Ormly frowned at the pond and its ice. At that moment a huge slab buckled with a loud crack! And he found himself involuntarily stepping back, one step, two. ‘Is it coming up?’ he demanded.
‘No,’ Ursto said, squinting one-eyed at the groaning heap of ice. ‘That’d be the one needing his finger back.’
The meltwater fringing the lake was bubbling and swirling now, bringing up clouds of silt as some current swept round the solid mass in the middle. Round and round, like a whirlpool only in reverse.
And all at once there was a thrashing, a spray of water, and a figure in its midst-struggling onto the bank, coughing, streaming muddy water, and holding in one incomplete hand a scabbarded sword.
Pinosel, her eyes bright as diamonds, lifted the jug in a wavering toast. ‘Hail the Saviour! Hail the half-drowned dog spitting mud!’ And then she crowed, the cry shifting into a cackle, before drinking deep once more.
Ormly plucked the severed finger from his purse and walked down to where knelt Brys Beddict. ‘Looking for this?’ he asked.
There had been a time of sleep, and then a time of pain. Neither had seemed to last very long, and now Brys Beddict, who had died of poison in the throne room of the Eternal Domicile, was on his hands and knees beside a lake of icy water. Racked with shivers, still coughing out water and slime.
And some man was crouched beside him, trying to give him a severed finger swollen and dyed pink.
He felt his left hand gripping a scabbard, and knew it for his own. Blinking to clear his eyes, he flitted a glance to confirm that the sword still resided within it. It did. Then, pushing the man’s gift away, he slowly settled onto his haunches, and looked round.
Familiar, yes.
The man beside him now laid a warm hand on his shoulder, as if to still his shivering. ‘Brys Beddict,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Tehol is about to die. Brys, your brother needs you now.’
And, as Brys let the man help him to his feet, he drew out his sword, half expecting to see it rusted, useless-but no, the weapon gleamed with fresh oil.
‘Hold on!’ shouted another voice.
The man steadying Brys turned slightly. ‘What is it, Ursto?’
‘The demon god’s about to get free! Ask ‘im!’
‘Ask him what?’
‘The name! Ask ‘im what’s its name, damn you! We can’t send it away without its name!’
Brys spat grit from his mouth. Tried to think. The demon god in the ice, the ice that was failing. Moments from release, moments from… ‘Ay’edenan of the Spring,’ he said. ‘Ay’edenan tek’ velut!enan.’
The man beside him snorted. ‘Try saying that five times fast! Errant, try saying it once!’
But someone was cackling.
‘Brys-’
He nodded. Yes. Tehol. My brother-‘Take me,’ he said. ‘Take me to him.’
‘I will,’ the man promised. ‘And on the way, I’ll do some explaining. All right?’
Brys Beddict, Saviour of the Empty Throne, nodded.
‘Imagine,’ Pinosel said with a gusty sigh, ‘a name in the old tongue. Oh now, ain’t this one come a long way!’
‘You stopped being drunk now, munch-sweets?’ She stirred, clambered onto her feet, then reached down and tugged at her husband. ‘Come on.’
‘But we got to wait-to use the name and send it away!’
‘We got time. Let’s perch ourselves down top of Wormface Alley, have another jug, an’ we can watch the Edur crawl up t’us like the Turtle of the Abyss.’ Ursto snorted. ‘Funny how that myth didn’t last.’
A deeper, colder shadow slid over Hannan Mosag and he halted his efforts. Almost there, yes-where the alley opened out, he saw two figures seated in careless sprawls and leaning against one another. Passing a jug between them.
Squalid drunks, but perhaps most appropriate as witnesses-to the death of this gross empire. The first to die, too. Also fitting enough.
He made to heave himself closer, but a large hand closed about his cloak, just below his collar, and he was lifted from the ground.
Hissing, seeking his power-
Hannan Mosag was slowly turned about, and he found himself staring into an unhuman face. Grey-green skin like leather. Polished tusks jutting from the corners of the mouth. Eyes with vertical pupils, regarding him now without expression.
Behind him the two drunks were laughing.
The Warlock King, dangling in the air before this giant demoness, reached for the sorcery of Kurald Emurlahn to blast this creature into oblivion. And he felt it surge within him-
But now her other hand took him by the throat.
And squeezed.
Cartilage crumpled like eggshells. Vertebrae crunched, buckled, broke against each other. Pain exploded upward, filling Hannan Mosag’s skull with white fire.
As the sun’s bright, unforgiving light suddenly bathed his face.
Sister Dawn-you greet me-
But he stared into the eyes of the demoness, and saw still nothing. A lizard’s eyes, a snake’s eyes.
Would she give him nothing at all?
The fire in his skull flared outward, blinding him, then, with a soft, fading roar, it contracted once more, darkness rushing into its wake.
But Hannan Mosag’s eyes saw none of this.
The sun shone full on his dead face, highlighting every twist, every marred flare of bone, and the unseeing eyes that stared out into that light were empty.
As empty as the Jaghut’s own.
Ursto and Pinosel watched the Jaghut fling the pathetic, mangled body away.
Then she faced them. ‘My ritual is sundered.’
Pinosel laughed through her nose, which proved a messy outburst the cleaning of which occupied her for the next few moments.
Ursto cast her a disgusted glance, then nodded to the Jaghut sorceress. ‘Oh, they all worked at doing that. Mosag, Menandore, Sukul Ankhadu, blah blah.’ He waved one hand. ‘But we’re here, sweetness. We got its name, y’see.’
The Jaghut cocked her head. ‘Then, I am not needed.’
‘Well, that’s true enough. Unless you care for a drink?’ He tugged the jug free of Pinosel’s grip, raised it.
The Jaghut stared a moment longer, then she said, ‘A pleasing offer, thank you.’
The damned sun was up, but on this side the city’s wall was all shadow. Except, Sergeant Balm saw, for the wide open gate.
Ahead, Masan Gilani did that unthinkable thing again and rose in her stirrups, leaning forward as she urged her horse into a gallop.
From just behind Balm, Throatslitter moaned like a puppy under a brick. Balm shook his head. Another sick thought just popping into his head like a squeezed tick. Where was he getting them from anyway? And why was that gate open and why were they all riding hard straight for it?
And was that corpses he saw just inside? Figures moving about amidst smoke? Weapons?
What was that sound from the other side of that gate?
‘Sharpers!’ Deadsmell called out behind him. ‘Keneb’s in! He’s holding the gate!’
Keneb? Who in Hood’s name was Keneb?
‘Ride!’ Balm shouted. ‘They’re after us! Ride for Aren!’
Masan Gilani’s rising and lowering butt swept into the shadow of the gate.
Throatslitter cried out and that was the sound all right, when the cat dives under the cartwheel and things go squirt and it wasn’t his fault he’d hardly kicked at all. ‘It dived out there, Ma! Oh, I hate cities! Let’s go home-ride! Through that hole! What’s it called? The big false-arched canti-levered hole!’
Plunging into gloom, horse hoofs suddenly skidding, the entire beast slewing round beneath him. Impact. Hip to rump, and Balm was thrown, arms reaching out, wrapping tight round a soft yielding assembly of perfected flesh-and she yelped, pulled with him as he plunged past dragging Masan Gilani from her saddle.
Hard onto cobbles, Balm’s head slamming down, denting and dislodging his helm. Her weight deliciously flattening him for a single exquisite moment before she rolled off.
Horses stumbling, hoofs cracking down way too close. Soldiers rushing in, pulling them clear.
Balm stared up into a familiar face. ‘Thorn Tissy, you ain’t dead?’
The ugly face spread into a toad’s grin-toad under a brick oh they smile wide then don’t they-and then a calloused hand slapped him hard. ‘You with us, Balm? Glad you arrived-we’re getting pressed here-seems the whole damned city garrison is here, tryin’ to retake the gate.’
‘Garrison? What’s Blistig thinking? We’re on his side! Show me the famous dancing girls of Aren, Tissy, that’s what I’m here to see and maybe more than see, hey?’
Thorn Tissy dragged Balm onto his feet, set the dented helm back onto Balm’s head, then he took him by the shoulders and turned him round.
And there was Keneb, and there, just beyond, barricades of wreckage and soldiers crouching down reloading crossbows while others hacked at Letherii soldiers trying to force a breach. Somewhere to the right a sharper detonated in an alley mouth where the enemy had been gathering for another rush. People screamed.
Fist Keneb stepped up to Balm. ‘Where are the rest, Sergeant?’
‘Sir?’
‘The Adjunct and the army!’
‘In the transports, sir, where else? Worst storm I’ve ever seen and now all the ships are upside down-’
Behind Balm Deadsmell said, ‘Fist, they should be on the march.’
‘Get Masan Gilani back on her horse,’ Keneb said and Balm wanted to kiss the man, ‘and I don’t care if she kills the beast but I want her to reach the Adjunct-they need to step it up. Send their cavalry ahead riding hard.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘We’re running low on munitions and quarrels and there’s more of the Letherii gathering with every damned breath and if they find a decent commander we won’t be able to hold.’
Was the Fist talking to Balm? He wasn’t sure, but he wanted to turn round to watch Masan Gilani jump with her legs spread onto that horse’s back, oh yes he did, but these hands on his shoulders wouldn’t let him and someone was whimpering in his ear-
‘Stop making that sound, Sergeant,’ Keneb said.
Someone rode back out through the gate and where did they think they were going? There was a fight here! ‘Boyfriends of the dancing girls,’ he whispered, reaching for his sword.
‘Corporal,’ Keneb said. ‘Guide your sergeant here to the barricade to the left. You too, Throatslitter.’
Deadsmell said, ‘He’ll be fine in a moment, sir-’
‘Yes, just go.’
‘Aye, Fist.’
Boyfriends. Balm wanted to kill every one of them.
‘This city looks like a hurricane went through it,’ Cuttle said in a low mutter.
He had that right. The looting and all the rest was days old, however, and now it seemed that word of the Malazan breach was sweeping through in yet another storm-this one met with exhaustion-as the squad crouched in shadows near one end of an alley, watching the occasional furtive figure rush across the street.
They’d ambushed one unit forming up to march for the western gate. Quarrels and sharpers and a burner under the weapons wagon-still burning back there by the column of black smoke lifting into the ever-brightening sky. Took them all out, twenty-five dead or wounded, and before he and Gesler had pulled away locals were scurrying out to loot the bodies.
The captain had commandeered Urb and his squad off to find Hellian and her soldiers-the damned drunk had taken a wrong turn somewhere-which left Fiddler arid Gesler to keep pushing for the palace.
Forty paces down the street to their right was a high wall with a fortified postern. City Garrison block and compound, and now that gate had opened and troops were filing out to form up ranks in the street.
‘That’s where we find the commander,’ Cuttle said. ‘The one organizing the whole thing.’
Fiddler looked directly across from where he and his marines were hiding and saw Gesler and his soldiers in a matching position in another alley mouth. It’d be nice if we were on the roofs. But no-one was keen to break into these official-looking buildings and maybe end up fighting frenzied clerks and night watch guards. Noise like that and there’d be real troops pushing in from behind them.
Maybe closer to the palace-tenement blocks there, “and crowded together. It’d save us a lot of this ducking and crawling crap.
And what could be messy ambushes.
‘Hood’s breath, Fid, there’s a hundred out there and still more coming.’ Cuttle pointed. ‘There, that’s the man in charge.’
‘Who’s our best shot with the crossbow?’ Fiddler asked.
‘You.’
Shit.
‘But Koryk’s all right. Though, if I’d pick anyone, it’d be Corabb.’
Fiddler slowly smiled. ‘Cuttle, sometimes you’re a genius.
Not that it’ll ever earn you rank of corporal or anything like that.’
‘I’ll sleep easy tonight, then.’ Cuttle paused, then mused, ‘Forty paces and a clear shot, but we’d blow any chance of ambush.’
Fiddler shook his head. ‘No, this is even better. He looses his quarrel, the man goes down. We rush out, throw five or six sharpers, then wheel and back into the alley-away as fast as we can. The survivors rush up, crowd the alley mouth, and Gesler hits ‘em from behind with another five or six sharpers.’
‘Beautiful, Fid. But how’s Gesler gonna know-’
‘He’ll work it out.’ Fiddler turned and gestured Corabb forward.
A freshly appointed Finadd of the Main Garrison, standing five paces from Atri-Preda Beshur, turned from reviewing his squads to see an aide’s head twitch, sparks flying from his helm, and then Finadd Gart, who was beside the Atri-Preda, shrieked. He was holding up one hand, seemingly right in Beshur’s face, and there was a quarrel stub jutting from that hand, and blood was gushing down Beshur’s face-as the Atri-Preda staggered back, the motion pulling Gart’s hand with him. For the quarrel was buried in Beshur’s forehead.
The new Finadd, nineteen years of age and now the ranking officer of this full-strength unit, stared in disbelief.
Shouts, and he saw figures appearing at the mouth of an alley a ways down the street. Five, six in all, rushing forward with rocks in their hands-
Pointing, the Finadd screamed the order to countercharge, and then he was running at the very head of. his soldiers, waving his sword in the air.
Thirty paces.
Twenty.
The rocks flew out, arced towards them. He ducked one that sailed close past his right shoulder and then, suddenly deaf, eyes filled with grit, he was lying on the cobbles and there was blood everywhere. Someone stumbled into his line of sight, one of his soldiers. The woman’s right arm dangled from a single thin strip of meat, and the appendage swung wildly about as the woman did a strange pirouette before promptly sitting down.
She looked across at him, and screamed.
The Finadd sought to climb to his feet, but something was wrong. His limbs weren’t working, and now there was a fire in his back-someone had lit a damned fire there-. why would they do that? Searing heat reaching down, through a strange numbness, and the back of his head was wet.
Struggling with all his will, he brought one hand up behind, to settle the palm on the back of his head.
And found his skull entirely gone.
Probing, trembling fingers pushed into some kind of pulped matter and all at once the burning pain in his back vanished.
He could make things work again, he realized, and pushed some more, deeper.
Whatever he then touched killed him.
As Fiddler led his squad into a seeming rout, with fifty or sixty Letherii soldiers charging after them, Gesler raised his hand, which held a burner. Aye, messy, but there were a lot of them, weren’t there?
Fiddler and his marines made it into the alley, tore off down it.
A crowd of Letherii reached the mouth, others pushing up behind them.
And munitions flew, and suddenly the street was a conflagration.
Without waiting, and as a gust of fierce heat swept over them, Gesler turned and pushed Stormy to lead the retreat.
Running, running hard.
They’d find the next street and swing right, come up round the other side of the walled compound. Expecting to see Fiddler and his own soldiers waiting opposite them again. More alley mouths, and just that much closer to the palace.
‘We got gold, damn you!’
‘Everybody’s got that,’ replied the barkeep, laconic as ever.
Hellian glared at him. ‘What kinda accent is that?’
‘The proper kind for the trader’s tongue, which makes one of us sound educated and I suppose that’s something.’
‘Oh, I’ll show you something!’ She drew out her corporal’s sword, giving him a hard push on the chest to clear the weapon, then hammered the pommel down on the bartop. The weapon bounced up from her hand, the edge scoring deep across Hellian’s right ear. She swore, reached up and saw her hand come away red with blood. ‘Now look what you made me do!’
‘And I suppose I also made you invade our empire, and this city, and-’
‘Don’t be an idiot, you ain’t that important. It was the winged monkeys did that.’
The barkeep’s thin, overlong face twisted slightly as he arched a single brow.
Hellian turned to her corporal. ‘What kinda sword you using, fool? One that don’t work right, that’s what kind, I’d say.’
‘Aye, Sergeant.
‘Sorry, Sergeant.’
‘Aye and sorry don’t cut it with me, Corporal. Now get that sword outa my sight.’
‘Did you hear it coming?’ another one of her soldiers asked.
‘What? What’s that supposed to mean, Boatsnort?’
‘Uh, my name’s-’
‘I just told you your name!’
‘Nothing, Sergeant. I didn’t mean nothing.’
The barkeep cleared his throat. ‘Now, if you are done with jabbering amongst yourselves, you can kindly leave. As I said before, this tavern is dry-’,
‘They don’t make taverns dry,’ Hellian said.
‘I’m sure you didn’t say that quite right-’
‘Corporal, you hearing all this?’
‘Yes.
‘Aye.’
‘Good. String this fool up. By his nostrils. From that beam right there.’
‘By his nostrils, Sergeant?’
‘That you again, Snortface?’
Hellian smiled as the corporal used four arms to grab the barkeep and drag him across the counter. The man was suddenly nowhere near as laconic as he was a moment ago. Sputtering, clawing at the hands gripping him, he shouted, ‘Wait! Wait!’
Everyone halted.
‘In the cellar,’ the man gasped.
‘Give my corporal directions and proper ones,’ Hellian said, so very satisfied now, except for her dribbling ear, but oh, if any of her soldiers got out of line she could pick the scab and bleed all over them and wouldn’t they feel just awful about it and then do exactly what she wanted them to do, ‘which is guard the door.’
‘Sergeant?’
‘You heard me, guard the door, so we’re not disturbed.’
‘Who are we on the lookout for?’ Snivelnose asked. Ain’t nobody-’
‘The captain, who else? She’s probably still after us, damn her.’
Memories, Icarium now understood, were not isolated things. They did not exist within high-walled compartments in a mind. Instead, they were like the branches of a tree, or perhaps a continuous mosaic on a floor that one could play light over, illuminating patches here and there.
Yet, and he knew this as well, for others that patch of light was vast and bright, encompassing most of a life, and although details might be blurred, scenes made hazy and uncertain with time, it was, nevertheless, a virtual entirety. And from this was born a sense of a self.
Which he did not possess and perhaps had never possessed. And in the grip of such ignorance, he was as malleable as a child. To be used; to be, indeed, abused. And many had done so, for there was power in Icarium, far too much power.
Such exploitation was now at an end. All of Taralack Veed’s exhortations were as wind in the distance, and he was not swayed. The Gral would be Icarium’s last companion.
He stood in the street, all of his senses awakened to the realization that he knew this place, this modest patch of the mosaic grey with promise. And true illumination was finally at hand. The measuring of time, from this moment and for ever onward. A life begun again, with no risk of losing his sense of self.
My hands have worked here. In this city, beneath this city.
And now awaits me, to be awakened.
And when I have done that, I will begin anew. A life, a host of tesserae to lay down one by one.
He set out, then, for the door.
The door into his machine.
He walked, unmindful of those scurrying in his wake, of the figures and soldiers moving out of his path. He heard but held no curiosity for the sounds of fighting, the violence erupting in the streets to either side, the detonations as of lightning although this dawn was breaking clear and still. He passed beneath diffused shadows cast down by billowing smoke from burning buildings, wagons and barricades. He heard screams and shouts but did not seek out where they came from, even to lend succour as he would normally have done. He stepped over bodies in the street.
He walked alongside an ash-laden greasy canal for a time, then reached a bridge and crossed over into what was clearly an older part of the city. Down another street to an intersection, whereupon he swung left and continued on.
There were more people here in this quarter-with the day growing bolder and all sounds of fighting a distant roar to the west-yet even here the people seemed dazed. None of the usual conversations, the hawkers crying their wares, beasts pulling loaded carts. The drifting smoke wafted down like an omen, and the citizens wandered through it as if lost.
He drew nearer the door. Of course, it was nothing like a door in truth. More like a wound, a breach. He could feel its power stir to life, for as he sensed it so too did it sense him.
Icarium then slowed. A wound, yes. His machine was wounded. Its pieces had been twisted, shifted out of position. Ages had passed since he had built it, so he should not be surprised. Would it still work? He was no longer so sure.
This is mine. I must make it right, no matter the cost.
1 will have this gift. 1 will have it.
He started forward once more.
The house that had once disguised this nexus of the machine had collapsed into ruin and no efforts had been made to clear the wreckage. There was a man standing before it.
After a long moment, Icarium realized that he recognized this man. He had been aboard the ships, and the name by which he had been known was Taxilian.
As Icarium walked up to him, Taxilian, his eyes strangely bright, bowed and stepped back. ‘This, Icarium,’ he said, ‘is your day.’
My day? Yes, my first day.
Lifestealer faced the ruin.
A glow was now rising from somewhere inside, shafts slanting up between snapped timbers and beams, lancing out in spears from beneath stone and brick. The glow burgeoned, and the world beneath him seemed to tremble. But no, that was no illusion-buildings groaned, shuddered. Splintering sounds, shutters rattling as from a gust of wind.
Icarium drew a step closer, drawing a dagger.
Thunder sounded beneath him, making the cobbles bounce in puffs of dust. Somewhere, in the city, structures began to break apart, as sections and components within them stirred into life, into inexorable motion. Seeking to return to a most ancient pattern.
More thunder, as buildings burst apart.
Columns of dust corkscrewed skyward.
And still the white glow lifted, spread out in a fashion somewhere between liquid and fire, pouring, leaping, the shafts and spears twisting in the air. Engulfing the ruin, spilling out onto the street, lapping around Icarium, who drew the sharp-edged blade diagonally, deep, up one forearm; then did the same with the other-holding the weapon tight in a blood-soaked hand.
Who then raised his hands.
To measure time, one must begin. To grow futureward, one must root. Deep into the ground with blood.
I built this machine. This place that will forge my beginning. No longer outside the world. No longer outside time itself. Give me this, wounded or not, give me this. If K’rul can, why not me?
All that poured from his wrists flared incandescent. And Icarium walked into the white.
Taxilian was thrown back as the liquid fire exploded outward. A moment of surprise, before he was incinerated. The eruption tore into the neighbouring buildings, obliterating them. The street in front of what had once been Scale House became a maelstrom of shattered cobbles, the shards of stone racing outward to stipple walls and punch through shutters. The building opposite tilted back, every brace snapping, then collapsed inward.
Fleeing the sudden storm, Taralack Veed and Senior Assessor ran-a half-dozen strides before both were thrown from their feet.
The Cabalhii monk, lying on his back, had a momentary vision of a mass of masonry rushing down, and in that moment he burst out laughing-a sound cut short as the tons of rubble crushed him.
Taralack Veed had rolled with his tumble, narrowly avoiding that descending wall. Deafened, half blind, he used his hands to drag himself onward, tearing his nails away and lacerating his palms and fingers on the broken cobbles.
And there, through the dust, the billowing white fire, he saw his village, the huts, the horses in their roped kraal, and there, on the hill beyond, the goats huddled beneath the tree, sheltering from the terrible sun. Dogs lying in the shade, children on their knees playing with the tiny clay figurines that some travelling Malazan scholar had thought to be of great and sacred significance, but were in truth no more than toys, for all children loved toys.
Why, he had had his very own collection and this was long before he killed his woman and her lover, before killing the man’s brother who had proclaimed the feud and had drawn the knife.
But now, all at once, the goats were crying out, crying out in dread pain and terror-dying! The huge tree in flames, branches crashing down.
The huts were burning and bodies sprawled in the dust with faces red with ruin. And this was death, then, death in the breaking of what had always been, solid and predictable, pure and reliable. The breaking-devastation, to take it all away.
Taralack Veed screamed, bloodied hands reaching for those toys-those beautiful, so very sacred toys-
The enormous chunk of stone that slanted down took the top of Taralack Veed’s head at an angle, crushing bone and brain, and, as it skidded away, it left a greasy smear of red-and grey-streaked hair.
Throughout the city, buildings erupted into clouds of dust. Stone, tile, bricks and wood sailed outward, and white fire poured forth, shafts of argent light arcing out through walls, as if nothing could exist that could impede them. A shimmering, crazed web of light, linking each piece of the machine. And the power flowed, racing in blinding pulses, and they all drew inward, to one place, to one heart.
Icarium.
The north and west outer walls detonated as sections of their foundations shifted, moved four, five paces, twisting as if vast pieces of a giant puzzle were being moved into place. Rent, sundered, parts of those walls toppled and the sound of that impact rumbled beneath every street.
In the courtyard of an inn that had, through nefarious schemes, become the property of Rautos Hivanar, a huge piece of metal, bent at right angles, now lifted straight upward to twice the height of the man standing before it. Revealing, at its base, a hinge of white fire.
And the structure then tilted, dropped forward like a smith’s hammer.
Rautos Hivanar dived to escape, but not quickly enough, as the massive object slammed down onto the backs of his legs.
Pinned, as white fire licked out towards him, Rautos could feel his blood draining down from his crushed legs, turning the compound’s dust into mud.
Yes, he thought, as it began with mud, so it now ends-
The white fire enveloped him.
And sucked out from his mind every memory he possessed.
The thing that died there a short time later was not Rautos Hivanar.
The vast web’s pulsing lasted but a half-dozen heartbeats. The shifting of the pieces of the machine, with all the destruction that entailed, was even more short-lived. Yet, in that time, all who were devoured by the white fire emptied their lives into it. Every memory, from the pain of birth to the last moment of death.
The machine, alas, was indeed broken.
As the echoes of groaning stone and metal slowly faded, the web flickered, then vanished. And now, dust warred with the smoke in the air above Letheras.
A few remaining sections of stone and brick toppled, but these were but modest adjustments in the aftermath of what had gone before.
And in this time of settling, the first voices of pain, the first cries for help, lifted weakly from heaps of rubble.
The ruins of Scale House were naught but white dust, and from it nothing stirred.
The bed of a canal had cracked during the earthquake, opening a wide fissure into which water plunged, racing down veins between compacted bricks and fill. And in the shaking repercussions of falling structures, buried foundations shifted, cracked, slumped.
Barely noticed amidst all the others, then, the explosion that tore up through that canal in a spray of sludge and water was relatively minor, yet it proved singular in one detail, for as the muddy rain of the canal’s water sluiced down onto the still-buckling streets, a figure clawed up from the canal, hands reaching for mooring rungs, pulling itself from the churning foam.
An old man.
Who stood, ragged tunic streaming brown water, and did not move while chaos and spears of blinding light tore through Letheras. Who remained motionless, indeed, after those terrifying events vanished and faded.
An old man.
Torn between incandescent rage and dreadful fear.
Because of who he was, the fear won out. Not for himself, of course, but for a mortal man who was, the old man knew, about to die.
And he would not reach him in time.
Well, so it would be rage after all. Vengeance against the Errant would have to wait its turn. First, vengeance against a man named Karos Invictad.
Mael, Elder God of the Seas, had work to do.
Lostara Yil and the Adjunct rode side by side at the head of the column of cavalry. Directly ahead they could see the west wall of the city. Enormous cracks were visible through the dust, and the gate before them remained open.
The horses were winded, their breaths gusting from foam-flecked nostrils.
Almost there.
‘Adjunct, was that munitions?’
Tavore glanced across, then shook her head.
‘Not a chance,’ Masan Gilani said behind them. ‘Only a handful of crackers in the whole lot. Something else did all that.’
Lostara twisted in her saddle.
Riding beside Masan Gilani was Sinn. Not riding well, either. Gilani was staying close, ready to reach out a steadying hand. The child seemed dazed, almost drunk. Lostara swung back. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ she asked the Adjunct.
‘I don’t know.’
As the road’s slope climbed towards the gate, they could see the river on their left. Thick with sails. The Malazan fleet and the two Thrones of War had arrived. The main army was only two or three bells behind the Adjunct’s column, and Fist Blistig was pushing them hard.
They drew closer.
‘That gate’s not going to close ever again,’ Lostara observed. ‘In fact, I’m amazed it’s still up.’ Various carved blocks in the arch had slipped down, jamming atop the massive wooden doors, which served to bind them in place.
As they rode up, two marines emerged from the shadows. Had the look of heavies, and both were wounded. The Dal Honese one waved.
Reining in before them, the Adjunct was first to dismount, one gloved hand reaching for her sword as she approached.
‘We’re holding still,’ the Dal Honese marine said. Then he raised a bloodied arm. ‘Bastard cut my tendon-it’s all rolled up under the skin-see? Hurts worse than a burr in the arse… sir.’
The Adjunct walked past both marines, into the shadow of the gate. Lostara gestured for the column to dismount, then set out after Tavore. As she came opposite the marines, she asked, ‘What company are you?’
‘Third, Captain. Fifth Squad. Sergeant Badan Gruk’s squad. I’m Reliko and this oaf is Vastly Blank. We had us a fight.’
Onward, through the dusty gloom, then out into dusty, smoke-filled sunlight. Where she halted, seeing all the bodies, all the blood.
The Adjunct stood ten paces in, and Keneb was limping towards her and on his face was desperate relief.
Aye, they had them a fight all right.
Old Hunch Arbat walked into the cleared space and halted beside the slumbering figure in its centre. He kicked.
A faint groan.
He kicked again.
Ublala Pung’s eyes flickered open, stared up uncompre-hendingly for a long moment, then the Tarthenal sat up. ‘Is it time?’
‘Half the damned city’s fallen down which is worse than Old Hunch predicted, isn’t it? Oh yes it is, worse and more than worse. Damned gods. But that’s no mind to us, Old Hunch says.’ He cast a critical eye on the lad’s efforts, then grudgingly nodded. ‘It’ll have to do. Just my luck, the last Tarthenal left in Letheras and he’s carrying a sack of sunbaked hens.’
Frowning, Ublala stretched a foot over and nudged the sack. There was an answering cluck and he smiled. ‘They helped me clean,’ he said.
Old Hunch Arbat stared for a moment, then he lifted his gaze and studied the burial grounds. ‘Smell them? Old Hunch does. Get out of this circle, Ublala Pung, unless you want to join in.’
Ublala scratched his jaw. ‘I was told not to join in on things I know nothing about.’
‘Oh? And who told you that?’
A fat woman named Rucket, when she got me to swear fealty to the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
‘The Rat Catchers’ Guild?’
Ublala Pung shrugged. ‘I guess they catch rats, but I’m not sure really.’
‘Out of the circle, lad.’
Three strides by the challenger onto the sands of the arena and the earthquake had struck. Marble benches cracked, people cried out, many falling, tumbling, and the sand itself shimmered then seemed to transform, as conglomerated, gritty lumps of dried blood rose into view like garnets in a prospector’s tin pan.
Samar Dev, shivering despite the sun’s slanting light, held tight to one edge of a bouncing bench, eyes fixed on Karsa Orlong who stood, legs wide to keep his balance but otherwise looking unperturbed-and there, at the other end of the arena, a swaying, hulking figure emerged from a tunnel mouth. Sword sweeping a furrow in the sand.
White fire suddenly illuminated the sky, arcing-across the blue-grey sky of sunrise. Flashing, pulsing, then vanishing, as trembles rippled in from the city, then faded away. Plumes of dust spiralled skyward from close by-in the direction of the Old Palace.
On the imperial stand the Chancellor-his face pale and eyes wide with alarm-was sending runners scurrying.
Samar Dev saw Finadd Varat Taun standing near Triban Gnol. Their gazes locked-and she understood. Icarium.
Oh, Taxilian, did you guess aright? Did you see what you longed to see? ‘What is happening?’
The roar brought her round, to where stood the Emperor. Rhulad Sengar was staring up at the Chancellor. ‘Tell me! What has happened?’
Triban Gnol shook his head, then raised his hands. ‘An earthquake, Emperor. Pray to the Errant that it has passed.’
‘Have we driven the invaders from our streets?’
‘We do so even now,’ the Chancellor replied.
‘I will kill their commander. With my own hands I will kill their commander.’..
Karsa Orlong drew his flint sword.
The act captured the Emperor’s attention, and Samar Dev saw Rhulad Sengar bare his teeth in an ugly smile. ‘Another giant,’ he said. ‘How many times shall you kill me? You, with the blood of my kin already on your hands. Twice? Three times? It will not matter. It will not matter!’
Karsa Orlong, bold with his claims, brazen in his arrogance, uttered but five words in reply: ‘I will kill you… once.’ And then he turned to look at Samar Dev-a moment’s glance, and it was all that Rhulad Sengar gave him.
With a shriek, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths rushed forward, his sword a whirling blur over his head.
Ten strides between them.
Five.
Three.
The gleaming arc of that cursed weapon slashed out, a decapitating swing-that rang deafeningly from Karsa’s stone sword. Sprang back, chopped down, was blocked yet again.
Rhulad Sengar staggered back, still smiling his terrible smile. ‘Kill me, then,’ he said in a ragged rasp.
Karsa Orlong made no move.
With a scream the Emperor attacked again, seeking to drive the Toblakai back.
The ringing concussions seemed to leap from those weapons, as each savage attack was blocked, shunted aside. Rhulad pivoted, angled to one side, slashed down at Karsa’s right thigh. Parried. A back-bladed swing up towards the Toblakai’s shoulder. Batted away. Stumbling off balance from that block, the Emperor was suddenly vulnerable. A hack downward would take him, a thrust would pierce him-a damned fool could have cut Rhulad down at that moment.
Yet Karsa did nothing. Nor had he moved, beyond turning in place to keep the Emperor in front of him.
Rhulad stumbled clear, then spun round, righting his sword. Chest heaving beneath the patchwork of embedded coins, eyes wild as a boar’s. ‘Kill me then!’
Karsa remained where he was. Not taunting, not even smiling.
Samar Dev stared down on the scene, transfixed. I do not know him. I have never known him.
Gods, we should have had sex-then I’d know!
Another whirling attack, again the shrieking reverberation of iron and flint, a flurry of sparks cascading down. And Rhulad staggered back once more.
The Emperor was now streaming with sweat.
Karsa Orlong did not even seem out of breath.
Inviting a fatal response, Rhulad Sengar dropped down onto one knee to regain his wind.
Invitation not accepted.
After a time, in which the score or fewer onlookers stared on, silent and confused; in which Chancellor Triban Gnol stood, hands clasped, like a crow nailed to a branch; the Emperor straightened, lifted his sword once more, and resumed his fruitless flailing-oh, there was skill, yes, extraordinary skill, yet Karsa Orlong stood his ground, and not once did that blade touch him.
Overhead, the sun climbed higher.
Karos Invictad, his shimmering red silks stained and smudged with grit and dust, dragged Tehol Beddict’s body across the threshold. Back into his office. From down the corridor, someone was screaming about an army in the city, ships crowding the harbour, but none of that mattered now.
Nothing mattered but this unconscious man at his feet. Beaten until he barely clung to life. By the Invigilator’s sceptre, his symbol of power, and was that not right? Oh, but it was.
Was the mob still there? Were they coming in now? An entire wall of the compound had collapsed, after all, nothing and no-one left to stop them. Motion caught his eye and his head snapped round-just another rat in the corridor, slithering past. The Guild. What kind of game were those fools playing? He’d killed dozens of the damned things, so easily crushed under heel or with a savage downward swing of his sceptre.
Rats. They were nothing. No different from the mob outside, all those precious citizens who understood nothing about anything, who needed leaders like Karos Invictad to guide them through the world. He adjusted his grip on the sceptre, flakes of blood falling away, his palm seemingly glued to the ornate shaft, but that glue had not set and wouldn’t for a while, would it? Not until he was truly done.
Where was that damned mob? He wanted them to see-this final skull-shattering blow-their great hero, their revolutionary.
Martyrs could be dealt with. A campaign of misinformation, rumours of vulgarity, corruption, oh, all that was simple enough.
I stood alone, yes, did I not? Against the madness of this day. They will remember that. More than anything else. They will remember that, and everything else I choose to give them.
Slaying the Empire’s greatest traitor-with my own hand, yes.
He stared down at Tehol Beddict. The battered, split-open face, the shallow breaths that trembled from beneath snapped ribs. He could put a foot down on the man’s chest, settle some weight, until those broken ribs punctured the lungs, left them lacerated, and the red foam would spill out from Tehol’s mashed nose, his torn lips. And, surprise. He would drown after all.
Another rat in the corridor? He turned.
The sword-point slashed across his stomach. Fluids gushed, organs following. Squealing, Karos Invictad fell to his knees, stared up at the man standing before him, stared up at the crimson-bladed sword in the man’s hand.
‘No,’ he said in a mumble, ‘but you are dead.’
Brys Beddict’s calm brown eyes shifted from the Invigilator’s face, noted the sceptre still held in Karos’s right hand. His sword seemed to writhe.
Burning pain in the Invigilator’s wrist and he looked down. Sceptre was gone. Hand was gone. Blood streamed from the stump.
A kick to the chest sent Karos Invictad toppling, trailing entrails that flopped down like an obscene, malformed penis between his legs.
He reached down with his one hand to pull it all back in, but there was no strength left.
Did I kill Tehol? Yes, I must have. The Invigilator is a true servant of the empire, and always will be, and there will be statues in courtyards and city squares. Karos Invictad, the hero who destroyed the rebellion.
Karos Invictad died then, with a smile on his face.
Brys Beddict sheathed his sword, knelt beside his brother, lifted his head into his lap.
Behind him, Ormly said, ‘A healer’s on the way.’
‘No need,’ Brys said. And looked up. ‘An Elder God comes.’
Ormly licked his lips. ‘Saviour-’
A cough from Tehol.
Brys looked down to see his brother’s eyes flick open. One brown, one blue. Those odd eyes stared up at him for a long moment, then Tehol whispered something.
Brys bent lower. ‘What?’
‘I said, does this mean I’m dead?’
‘No, Tehol. Nor am I, not any longer, it seems.’
‘Ah. Then…’
‘Then what?’
‘Death-what’s it like, Brys?’
And Brys Beddict smiled. ‘Wet.’
‘I always said cities were dangerous places,’ Quick Ben said, brushing plaster dust from his clothes. The collapsing building had nearly flattened them both, and the wizard was still trembling-not from the close call, but from the horrendous sorcery that had lit the morning sky-a devour-ing, profoundly hungry sorcery. Had that energy reached for him, he was not sure he could have withstood it.
‘What in Hood’s name was that?’ Hedge demanded.
All I know, it was old. And vicious.’
‘We gonna get any more, you think?’
Quick Ben shrugged, ‘I hope not.’
They went on, through streets filled with rubble, and on all sides the cries of the wounded, figures staggering in shock, dust and smoke lifting into the sunlight.
Then Hedge held up a hand. ‘Listen.’
Quick Ben did as he was bid.
And, from somewhere ahead-closer to the Eternal Domicile-the echo of ‘Sharpers!’
Aye, Quick, aye. Come on, let’s go find ‘em!’
‘Wait-hold it, sapper-what are-’
‘It’s the Fourteenth, you thick-skulled halfwit!’
They began hurrying.
‘Next time I see Cotillion,’ Quick Ben hissed, ‘I’m going to strangle him with his own rope.’
Six leagues to the north, a bone-white dragon with eyes of lurid red sailed through the morning sky. Wings creaking, muscles bunching, the wind hissing against scales and along bared fangs that were the length of shorts words.
Returning, after all this time, to the city of Letheras.
Hannan Mosag had been warned. The Crippled God had been warned. And yet neither had heeded Silchas Ruin. No, instead, they had conspired with Sukul Ankhadu and Sheltatha Lore, and possibly with Menandore herself. To get in his way, to oppose him and what he had needed to do.
More than this, the Letherii Empire had been hunting them for an inordinate amount of time, and out of forbearance Silchas Ruin had ignored the affront. For the sake of the Acquitor and the others.
Now, he was no longer ignoring anything.
An empire, a city, a people, a Tiste Edur Ceda and a mad Emperor.
The brother of Anomander and Andarist, for ever deemed the coldest of the three, the cruellest, Silchas Ruin flew, a white leviathan with murder in its heart.
White as bone, with eyes red as death.
Rhulad Sengar stumbled away, dragging his sword. Sweat streamed from him, his hair hanging ragged and dripping. He had struck again and again, not once piercing the defensive net of his challenger’s stone sword. Six paces between them now, chewed-up sand soaked and clumped with nothing but spatters from the glistening oil that made the coins gleam.
Silent as all the other witnesses, Samar Dev watched on, wondering how all this would end, wondering how it could end. As long as Karsa refused to counter-attack…
And then the Toblakai raised his sword and walked forward.
Straight for the Emperor.
As easy as that, then.
Who rose with a sudden smile and lifted his weapon into a guard position.
The flint sword lashed out, an awkward cut, yet swung with such strength that Rhulad’s block with his own weapon knocked one of his hands loose from the grip, and the iron blade nailed outward, and then, all at once, that cursed sword seemed to acquire a will of its own, the point thrusting into a lunge that dragged the Emperor forward with a scream.
And the blade sank into Karsa’s left thigh, through skin, muscle, narrowly missing the bone, then punching out the back side. The Toblakai pivoted round, even as with appalling fluidity he brought his sword in a downward cut that sliced entirely through Rhulad’s shoulder above the sword-arm.
As the arm, its hand still gripping the weapon now bound-trapped in Karsa’s leg-parted from Rhulad’s body, the Toblakai back-swung the flat of his blade into Rhulad’s face, sending him sprawling onto the sand.
And Samar Dev found that she held the knife, the blade bared, and as Karsa turned to face her, she was already slicing deep across her palm, hissing the ancient words of release-letting loose the imprisoned spirits, the desert godlings and all those who were bound to the old knife-
Spirits and ghosts of the slain poured forth, freed by the power in her blood, streaming down over the rows of benches, down onto the floor of the arena.
To the terrible sounds of Rhulad Sengar’s shrieking, those spirits rushed straight for Karsa, swept round, engulfed him-swirling chaos-a blinding moment as of fires unleashed-
– and Karsa Orlong, the Emperor’s sword and the arm still holding it, vanished.
Lying alone on the sands of the arena, Rhulad Sengar spilled crimson from the stump of his shoulder.
And no-one moved.
To dwell within an iron blade had proved, for the ghost of Ceda Kuru Qan, a most interesting experience. After an immeasurable time of exploration, sensing all the other entities trapped within, he had worked out a means of escaping whenever he wished. But curiosity had held him, a growing suspicion that all dwelt in this dark place for some hidden purpose. And they were waiting.
Anticipation, even eagerness. And, indeed, far more bloodlust than Kuru Qan could abide.
He had considered a campaign of domination, of defeating all the other spirits, and binding them to his will. But a leader, he well understood, could not be ignorant, and to compel the revelation of the secret was ever a chancy proposition.
Instead, he had waited, patient as was his nature whether living or dead.
Sudden shock, then, upon the gushing taste of blood in his mouth, and the frenzied ecstasy that taste unleashed within him. Sour recognition-most humbling-in discovering such bestial weakness within him-and when the summoning arrived in the language of the First Empire, Kuru Qan found himself rising like a demon to roar his domination over all others, then lunging forth from the iron blade, into the world once again, leading a dread host-
To the one standing. Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai.
And the sword impaling his leg.
Kuru Qan understood, then, what needed to be done. Understood the path that must be forged, and understood, alas, the sacrifice that must be made.
They closed round the Toblakai warrior. They reached for that cursed sword and grasped hold of its blade. They drew with ferocious necessity on the blood streaming down the Toblakai’s leg, causing him to stagger, and, with Kuru Qan in the forefront, the spirits tore open a gate.
A portal.
Chaos roared in on all sides, seeking to annihilate them, and the spirits began surrendering their ghostly lives, sacrificing themselves to the rapacious hunger assailing them. Yet, even as they did so, they pushed the Toblakai forward, forging the path, demanding the journey.
Other spirits awakened, from all around the warrior-the Toblakai’s own slain, and they were legion.
Death roared. The pressure of the chaos stabbed, ripped spirits to pieces-even with all their numbers, the power of their will, they were slowing, they could not get through-Kuru Qan screamed-to draw more of the Toblakai’s power would kill him. They had failed.
Failed-
In a cleared circle in an old Tarthenal burial ground, a decrepit shaman seated cross-legged in its centre stirred awake, eyes blinking open. He glanced up to see Ublala Pung standing just beyond the edge.
‘Now, lad,’ he said.
Weeping, the young Tarthenal rushed forward, a knife in his hands-one of Arbat’s own, the iron black with age, the glyphs on the blade so worn down as to be almost invisible.
Arbat nodded as Ublala Pung reached him and drove the weapon deep into the shaman’s chest. Not on the heart side-Old Hunch needed to take a while to die, to bleed out his power, to feed the multitude of ghosts now rising from the burial grounds.
‘Get away from here!’ Arbat shouted, even as he fell onto his side, blood frothing at his mouth. ‘Get out!’
Loosing a childlike bawl, Ublala Pung ran.
The ghosts gathered, pure-blooded and mixed-bloods, spanning centuries upon centuries and awake after so long.
And Old Hunch Arbat showed them their new god. And then showed them, with the power of his blood, the way through.
Kuru Qan felt himself lifted on a tide, shoved forward as if by an enormous wave, and all at once there were spirits, an army of them.
Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai.
Tarthenal-
Surging forward, the chaos thrust back, recoiling, then attacking once more.
Hundreds vanishing.
Thousands voicing wailing cries of agony.
Kuru Qan found himself close to the Toblakai warrior, directly in front of the flailing figure, and he reached back, as if to grab the Toblakai’s throat. Closed his hand, and pulled.
Water, a crashing surf, coral sand shifting wild underfoot. Blinding heat from a raging sun.
Staggering, onto the shore-and yes, this was as far as Kuru Qan could go.
Upon the shore.
He released the warrior, saw him stumble onto the island’s beach, dragging that sword-impaled leg-
Behind the old Ceda, the sea reached out, snatched Kuru Qan back with a rolling, tumbling inhalation.
Water everywhere, swirling, pulling him ever deeper, ever darker.
They were done.
We are done.
And the sea, my friends, does not dream of you.
On the arena floor, Emperor Rhulad Sengar lay dead. Bled out, his flesh where visible pale as river clay, and as cold. Sand dusted the sweaty coins and all the blood that had poured from him was turning black.
And the onlookers waited.
For the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths to rise again.
The sun rose higher, the sounds of fighting in the city drew closer.
And, had anyone been looking, they would have seen a speck above the horizon to the north. Growing ever larger.
One street away from the Eternal Domicile, Fiddler led his squad onto the rooftop of some gutted public building. Flecks of ash swirled in the hot morning air and all the city that they could see was veiled behind dust and smoke.
They’d lost Gesler and his squad, ever since the garrison ambush, but Fiddler was not overly concerned. All opposition was a shambles. He ran in a crouch to the edge facing the Eternal Domicile, looked across, and then down to the street below.
There was a gate, closed, but no guards in sight. Damned strange. Where is everyone?
He returned to where his soldiers waited, catching their breaths in the centre of the flat rooftop. ‘All right,’ he said, setting down his crossbow and opening his satchel, ‘there’s a gate that I can take out with a cusser from here. Then down we go and straight across and straight in, fast and mean. Kill everyone in sight, understood?’ He drew out his cusser quarrel and carefully loaded the crossbow. Then resumed his instructions. ‘Tarr takes up the rear crossing the street. Bottle, keep everything you got right at hand-’
‘Sergeant-’
‘Not now, Corabb. Listen! We’re heading for the throne room. I want Cuttle out front-’
‘Sergeant-’
‘-with sharpers in hand. Koryk, you’re next-’
‘Sergeant-’
‘What in Hood’s name is it, Corabb?’
The man was pointing. Northward.
Fiddler and the others all turned.
To see an enormous white dragon bearing down on them.
An infrequent scattering of cut-down Letherii soldiers and small fires left behind by munitions had provided enough of a trail for Quick Ben and Hedge, and they were now crouched at the foot of a door to a burnt-out building.
‘Listen,’ Hedge was insisting, ‘the roof here’s right opposite the gate. I know Fid and I’m telling you, he’s on that Hood-damned roof!’
‘Fine, fine, lead on, sapper.’ Quick Ben shook his head. Something… I don’t know…
They plunged inside. The stench of smoke was acrid, biting. Charred wreckage lay all about, the detritus of a ruined empire.
‘There,’ Hedge said, then headed on into a corridor, down to a set of stairs leading upward.
Something…oh, gods!
‘Move it!’ Quick Ben snarled, shoving the sapper forward.
‘What-’
‘Hurry!’
The huge dragon angled down, straight for them.
Fiddler stared for a moment longer, seeing the beast opening its mouth, knowing what was coming, then he raised his crossbow and fired.
The bolt shot upward.
A hind limb of the dragon snapped out to bat the quarrel aside.
And the cusser detonated.
The explosion flattened the marines on the rooftop, sent Fiddler tumbling backward.
The roof itself sagged beneath them with grinding, crunching sounds.
Fiddler caught a glimpse of the dragon, streaming blood, its chest torn open, sliding off to one side, heading towards the street below, shredded wings flailing like sails in a storm.
A second bolt flew out to intercept it.
Another explosion, sending the dragon lurching back, down, into a building, which suddenly folded inward on that side, then collapsed with a deafening roar.
Fiddler twisted round-
– and saw Hedge.
– and Quick Ben, who was running towards the roof’s edge, his hands raised and sorcery building round him as if he was the prow of a ship cutting through water.
Fiddler leapt to his feet and followed the wizard.
From the wreckage of the building beside the Eternal Domicile, the dragon was pulling itself free. Lacerated, bones jutting and blood leaking from terrible wounds. And then, impossibly, it rose skyward once more, rent wings flapping-but Fiddler knew that it was sorcery that was lifting the creature back into the air.
As it cleared the collapsed building, Quick Ben unleashed his magic. A wave of crackling fire crashed into the dragon, sent it reeling back.
Another.
And then another-the dragon was now two streets away, writhing under the burgeoning assault.
Then, with a piercing cry, it wheeled, climbed higher, and flew away, in full retreat.
Quick Ben lowered his arms, then fell to his knees.
Staring after the fast-diminishing dragon, Fiddler leaned his crossbow onto his shoulder.
‘This ain’t your fight,’ he said to the distant creature. ‘Fucking dragon.’
Then he turned and stared at Hedge.
Who, grinning, stared back.
‘No ghost?’
‘No ghost. Aye, Fid, I’m back.’
Fiddler scowled, then shook his head. ‘Hood help us all.’ Then he turned to Quick Ben. ‘And where in the Abyss have you been?’
Picking himself up from the buckled rooftop, Bottle stared across at those three soldiers. Didn’t know one of them except that he was a sapper. And a damned Bridgeburner.
Beside him, Koryk groaned, then spat. ‘Look at ‘em,’ he said.
Bottle nodded.
And, oddly enough, for all the soldiers in the squad, nothing more about it needed saying.
Bottle squinted at the fast-dwindling dragon. Allow us to introduce ourselves…
Trull Sengar gently lifted Seren’s arms and stepped back from her embrace. She almost sagged forward, not wanting the moment to end, and something cold formed a fist in her stomach. Wincing, she turned away.
‘Seren-’
She waved a hand, then met his eyes once more.
‘My brother. My parents.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I cannot pretend that they are not there. That they mean nothing to me.’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
He crossed the dusty room, kicking through rubbish-the place had been stripped of virtually everything, no matter how worthless. They had lain together on their cloaks, watched by spiders in the corners near the ceiling and bats slung in a row beneath a window sill. He picked up the Imass spear from where it leaned against a wall and faced her, offering a faint smile. ‘I can protect myself. And alone, I can move quickly-’
‘Go, then,’ she said, and felt anguish at the sudden hardness in her voice.
His half-smile held a moment longer, then he nodded and walked into the corridor that led to the front door.
After a moment Seren Pedac followed. ‘Trull-’
He paused at the doorway. ‘I understand, Seren. It’s all right.’
No it’s not all right! ‘Please,’ she said, ‘come back.’
‘I will. I can do nothing else. You have all there is of me, all that’s left.’
‘Then I have all I need,’ she replied.
He reached out, one hand brushing her cheek.
And then was gone.
Emerging from the pathway crossing the yard, Trull Sengar, the butt of the spear ringing like the heel of a staff on the cobbles, walked out into the street.
And set off in the direction of the Eternal Domicile.
From the shadows of an alley opposite, the Errant watched him.
‘I feel much better.’
Brys Beddict smiled across at his brother. ‘You look it. So, Tehol, your manservant is an Elder God.’
‘I’ll take anybody I can find.’
‘Why are your eyes two different colours now?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think Bugg may be colour blind. Blue and green, green and blue, and as for brown, forget it.’
Said manservant who happened to be an Elder God walked into the room. ‘I found her.’
Tehol was on his feet. ‘Where? Is she alive?’
‘Yes, but we’ve work to do… again.’
‘We need to find that man, that Tanal-’
‘No need for that,’ Bugg replied, eyes settling on the corpse of Karos Invictad.
Brys did the same. A two-headed insect was slowly making its way towards the spilled entrails. ‘What in the Errant’s name is that?’
And Bugg hissed through his teeth. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he’s next.’
Outside, in the compound, in the street beyond, a mass of citizens were gathering. Their sound was like an advancing tide. There had been some thunderous explosions, and the unmistakable roar of sorcery, from the direction of the Eternal Domicile, but that had all been short-lived.
Tehol faced Bugg, ‘Listen to that mob. We going to be able to leave here alive? I’m really not in the mood for a Drowning. Especially my own.’
Brys grunted. ‘You’ve not been paying attention, brother. You’re a hero. They want to see you.’
‘I am? Why, I never imagined that they had it in them.’
‘They didn’t,’ Bugg replied, with a sour expression. ‘Ormly and Rucket have spent a fortune on criers.’ Brys smiled. ‘Humbled, Tehol?’
‘Never. Bugg, take me to Janath. Please.’ At that, Brys Beddict’s brows rose. Ah, it is that way, then. Well. Good.
A surviving officer of the city garrison formally surrendered to the Adjunct just inside the west gate, and now Tavore led her occupying army into Letheras.
Leaving Fist Blistig in charge of the main force, she assembled the five hundred or so surviving marines, along with Fist Keneb, and her own troop of mounted cavalry, and set out for the imperial palace. This ill-named ‘Eternal Domicile’.
Sinn, riding behind Lostara Yil, had cried out when the dragon had appeared over the city; then had laughed and clapped her hands when at least two cussers and then wave after wave of ferocious sorcery routed the creature.
Captain Faradan Sort’s advance squads were still active-that much had been made abundantly clear. And they were at the palace, or at least very close. And they were in a mood.
Most commanders would have raged at this-uncontrolled soldiers raising mayhem somewhere ahead, a handful of grubby marines who’d lived in the wilds for too long now battering at the palace door, frenzied with blood-lust and eager to deliver vengeance. Was this how she wanted to announce her conquest? Would the damned fools leave anything still breathing in that palace?
And what of this un-killable Emperor? Lostara Yil did not believe such a thing was even possible. A cusser in the bastard’s crotch there on that throne and he’ll be giving to the people for days and days. She wouldn’t put it past Fiddler, either. One step into the throne room, the thwock of that oversized crossbow, and then the sergeant diving back, trying to get clear as the entire room erupted. He’d probably happily kill himself for that pleasure.
Yet, while without doubt the Adjunct shared such visions, Tavore said nothing. Nor did she urge her troops to any haste-not that any of them were in shape for that, especially the marines. Instead, they advanced at a measured pace, and citizens began appearing from the side lanes, alleys and avenues, to watch them march past. Some even cried out a welcome, with voices breaking with relief.
The city was a mess. Riots and earthquakes and Moranth munitions. Lostara Yil began to realize that, if the arrival of the Bonehunters signified anything, it was the promise of a return to order, a new settling of civilization, of laws and, ironically, of peace.
But Adjunct, if we tarry here too long, that will turn. It always does. Nobody likes being under an occupier’s heel. Simple human nature, to take one’s own despair and give it a foreigner’s face, then let loose the hounds of blood.
See these citizens? These bright, gladdened faces? Any one of them, before long, could turn. The reapers of violence can hide behind the calmest eyes, the gentlest of smiles. ‘
The column’s pace was slowing, with ever more crowds before them. Chants were rising and falling here and there. Letherii words, the tone somewhere between hope and insistence.
‘Adjunct, what is it they’re all saying?’
A name,’ she replied. ‘Well, two names, I think. One they call the Saviour. The other…’
‘The other… what, sir?’
She cast Lostara a quick glance, then her mouth set, before she said, ‘Emperor.’
Emperor? ‘But I thought-’
A new Emperor, Captain. By proclamation, it would seem.’
Oh, and have we nothing to say on this?
Directly ahead was a wall of citizens, blocking all hopes ‘ of passage, through which a small group was moving, pushing its way to the forefront.
The Adjunct raised a gloved hand to signal a halt.
. ‘ ¦ ¦
The group emerged, an enormously fat woman in the lead, followed by a gnarled little man who seemed to be carrying rats in the pockets of his cloak, and then two men who looked like brothers. Both lean, one in the uniform of an officer, the other wearing a tattered, blood-stained blanket.
Tavore dismounted, gesturing for Lostara to do the same.
The two women approached the group. As they drew closer, the fat woman stepped to one side and with a surprisingly elegant wave of one plump hand she said, ‘Commander, I present to you Brys Beddict, once Champion to King Ezgara Diskanar-before the Edur conquest-now proclaimed the Saviour. And his brother, Tehol Beddict, financial genius, liberator of the oppressed and not half bad in bed, even now being proclaimed the new Emperor of Lether by his loving subjects.’
The Adjunct seemed at a loss for a reply.
Lostara stared at this Tehol Beddict-although, truth be told, she’d rather let her eyes linger on Brys-and frowned at the disgusting blanket wrapped about him. Financial genius?
Brys Beddict now stepped forward and, as had the huge woman, spoke in the trader’s tongue. ‘We would escort you to the Eternal Domicile, Commander, where we will, I believe, find an emperor without an empire, who will need to be ousted.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘I assume you come as liberators, Commander. And, accordingly, have no wish to overstay your welcome.’
‘By that,’ the Adjunct said, ‘you mean to imply that I have insufficient forces to impose a viable occupation. Were you aware, Brys Beddict, that your eastern borderlands have been overrun? And that an army of allies now marches into your empire?’
‘Do you come as conquerors, then?’ Brys Beddict asked.
The Adjunct sighed, then unstrapped and pulled off her helm. She drew her hand from its glove and ran it through her short, sweat-damp hair. ‘Hood forbid,’ she muttered.
‘Find us a way through these people, then, Brys Beddict.’ She paused, cast her gaze to Tehol Beddict, and slowly frowned. ‘You are rather shy for an emperor,’ she observed.
Tehol refuted that with the brightest smile, and it transformed him, and suddenly Lostara forgot all about the man’s martial-looking brother.
Spirits of the sand, those eyes…
‘I do apologize, Commander. I admit I have been somewhat taken aback.’
The Adjunct slowly nodded. ‘By this popular acclaim, yes, I imagine-’
‘No, not that. She said I was not half bad in bed. I am crushed by the other half, the “half good” bit-’
‘Oh, Tehol,’ the fat woman said, ‘I was being modest for your sake.’
‘Modesty from you, Rucket? You don’t know the meaning of the word! I mean, I just look at you and it’s hard not to, if you know what I mean.’
‘No.’
‘Anyway!’ Tehol clapped his hands together. ‘We’ve had the fireworks, now let’s get this parade started!’
Sirryn Kanar ran down the corridor, away from the fighting. The damned foreigners were in the Eternal Domicile, delivering slaughter-no calls for surrender, no demands to throw down weapons. Just those deadly quarrels, those chopping shortswords and those devastating grenados. His fellow guards were dying by the score, their blood splashing the once pristine walls.
And Sirryn vowed he was not going to suffer the same fate.
They wouldn’t kill the Chancellor. They needed him, and besides, he was an old man. Obviously unarmed, a peaceful man. Civilized. And the guard they’d find standing at his side, well, even he carried naught but a knife at his belt. No sword, no shield, no helm or even armour.
I can stay alive there, right at the Chancellor’s side.
But where is he?
The throne room had been empty.
The Emperor is in the arena. The mad fool is still fighting his pointless, pathetic fights. And the Chancellor would be there, attending, ironic witness to the last Tiste Edur’s drooling stupidity. The last Tiste Edur in the city. Yes.
He hurried on, leaving the sounds of fighting well behind him.
A day of madness-would it never end?
Chancellor Triban Gnol stepped back. The realization had come suddenly to him, with the force of a hammer blow. Rhulad Sengar will not return. The Emperor of a Thousand Deaths… has died his last death.
Toblakai. Karsa Orhng, I do not know what you have done, I do not know how-but you have cleared the path.
You have cleared it and for that I bless you.
He looked about, and saw that the meagre audience had fled-yes, the Eternal Domicile was breached, the enemy was within. He turned to the Finadd standing nearby. ‘Varat Taun.’
‘Sir?’
‘We are done here. Gather your soldiers and escort me to the throne room, where we will await the conquerors.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And we bring that witch with us-I would know what has happened here. I would know why she laid open her hand with that knife. I would know everything.’
‘Yes, Chancellor.’
The captain was surprisingly gentle taking the pale woman into his custody, and indeed, he seemed to whisper something to her that elicited a weary nod. Triban Gnol’s eyes narrowed. No, he did not trust this new Finadd. Would that he had Sirryn with him.
As they made their way from the arena, the Chancellor paused for one look back, one last look at the pathetic figure lying on the bloody sand. Dead. He is truly dead.
I believe I always knew Karsa Orhng would be the one. Yes, I believe I did.
He was almost tempted to head back, down onto the arena floor, to walk across the pitch and stand over the body of Rhulad Sengar. And spit into the Emperor’s face.
No time. Such pleasure will have to wait.
But I vow I will do it yet.
Cuttle waved them to the intersection. Fiddler led the rest of his squad to join the sapper.
‘This is the main approach,’ Cuttle said. ‘It’s got to be.’
Fiddler nodded. The corridor was ornately decorated, impressively wide, with an arched ceiling gleaming with gold leaf. There was no-one about. ‘So where are the guards, and in which direction is the throne room?’
‘No idea,’ Cuttle replied. ‘But I’d guess we go left.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason, except everyone who tried to get away from us was more or less heading that way.’
‘Good point, unless they were all headed out the back door.’ Fiddler wiped sweat from his eyes. Oh, this had been a nasty bloodletting, but he’d let his soldiers go, despite the disapproving looks from Quick Ben. Damned High Mage and his nose in the air-and where in Hood’s name did all that magic come from? Quick had never showed anything like that before. Not even close.
He looked across at Hedge.
Same old Hedge. No older than the last time Fiddler had seen him. Gods, it doesn’t feel real. He’s back. Living, breathing, farting… He reached out and cuffed the man in the side of the head.
‘Hey, what’s that for?’
‘No reason, but I’m sure I was owed doing that at least once.’
‘Who saved your skin in the desert? And under the city?’
‘Some ghost up to no good,’ Fiddler replied.
‘Hood, that white beard makes you look ancient, Fid, you know that?’
Oh, be quiet.
‘Crossbows loaded, everyone? Good. Lead on, Cuttle, but slow and careful, right?’
They were five paces into the corridor when a side entrance ahead and to their right was suddenly filled with figures. And mayhem was let loose once more.
Tarr saw the old man first, the one in the lead, or even if he didn’t see him first, he got off his shot before anyone else. And the quarrel sank into the side of the man’s head, dead in the centre of his left temple. And everything sprayed out the other side.
Other quarrels caught him, at least two, spinning his scrawny but nice-robed body round before it toppled.
A handful of guards who had been accompanying the old man reeled back, at least two stuck good, and Tarr was already rushing forward, drawing his shortsword and bringing his shield round. He bumped hard against Corabb who was doing the same and swore as the man got in front of him.
Tarr raised his sword, a sudden, overwhelming urge to hammer the blade down on the bastard’s head-but no, save that for the enemy-
Who were throwing down their weapons as they backed down the corridor.
‘For Hood’s sake!’ Quick Ben shouted, dragging at Tarr to get past, then shoving Corabb to one side. ‘They’re surrendering, damn you! Stop slaughtering everyone!’
And from the Letherii group, a woman’s voice called out in Malazan, ‘We surrender! Don’t kill us!’
That voice was enough to draw everyone up.
Tarr swung round, as did the others, to look at Fiddler.
After a moment, the sergeant nodded. ‘Take ‘em prisoner, then. They can lead us to the damned throne room.’
Smiles ran up to the body of the old man and started pulling at all his gaudy rings.
A Letherii officer stepped forward, hands raised. ‘There’s no-one in the throne room,’ he said. ‘The Emperor is dead-his body’s in the arena-’
‘Take us there, then,’ Quick Ben demanded, with a glare at Fiddler. ‘I want to see for myself.’
The officer nodded. ‘We just came from there, but very well’
Fiddler waved his squad forward, then scowled over at Smiles. ‘Do that later, soldier-’
She bared her teeth like a dog over a kill, then drew out a large knife and, with two savage chops, took the old man’s pretty hands.
Trull Sengar stepped out onto the sand of the arena, eyes fixed on the body lying near the far end. The gleam of coins, the head tilted back. He slowly walked forward.
There was chaos in the corridors and chambers of the Eternal Palace. He could search for his parents later, but he suspected he would not find them. They had gone with the rest of the Tiste Edur. Back north. Back to their homeland. And so, in the end, they too had abandoned Rhulad, their youngest son.
Why does he lie unmoving? Why has he not returned?
He came to Rhulad’s side and fell to his knees. Set down his spear. A missing arm, a missing sword.
He reached out and lifted his brother’s head. Heavy, the face so scarred, so twisted with pain that it was hardly recognizable. He settled it into his lap.
Twice now, 1 am made to do this. With a brother whose face, there below me, rests too still. Too emptied of life. They look so… wrong.
He would have tried, one last time, a final offering of reason to his young brother, an appeal to all that he had once been. Before all this. Before, in foolish but understandable zeal, he had grasped hold of a sword on a field of ice.
Rhulad would then, in another moment of weakness, pronounce Trull Shorn. Dead in the eyes of all Tiste Edur. And chain him to stone to await a slow, wasting death. Or the rise of water.
Trull had come, yes, to forgive him. It was the cry in his heart, a cry he had lived with for what seemed for ever. You were wounded, brother. So wounded. He had cut you down, laid you low but not dead. He had done what he needed to do, to end your nightmare. But you did not see it that way. You could not.
Instead, you saw your brothers abandon you.
So now, my brother, as I forgive you, will you now forgive me?
Of course, there would be no answer. Not from that ever still, ever empty face. Trull was too late. Too late to forgive and too late to be forgiven.
He wondered if Seren had known, had perhaps guessed what he would find here.
The thought of her made his breath catch in his throat. Oh, he had not known such love could exist. And now, even in the ashes surrounding him here, the future was unfolding like a flower, its scent sweet beyond belief.
This is what love means. 1 finally see-
The knife thrust went in under his left shoulder blade, tore through into his heart.
Eyes wide in sudden pain, sudden astonishment, Trull felt Rhulad’s head tilt to one side on his lap, then slide down from hands that had lost all strength.
Oh, Seren, my love.
Oh, forgive me.
Teeth bared, Sirryn Kanar stepped back, tugging his weapon free. One last Tiste Edur. Now dead, by his own hand. Pure justice still existed in this world. He had cleansed the Lether Empire with this knife, and look, see the thick blood dripping down, welling round the hilt.
A thrust to the heart, the conclusion of his silent stalk across the sands, his breath held overlong for the. last three steps. And his blessed shadow, directly beneath his feet-no risk of its advancing ahead to warn the bastard. There was that one moment when a shadow had flitted across the sand-a damned owl, of all things-but the fool had not noticed.
No indeed: the sun stood at its highest point.
And every shadow huddled, trembling beneath that fierce ruler in the sky.
He could taste iron in his mouth, a gift so bitter he exulted in its cold bite. Stepping back, as the body fell to one side, fell right over that pathetic savage’s spear.
The barbarian dies. As he must, for mine is the hand of civilization.
He heard a commotion at the far end and spun round.
The quarrel pounded into his left shoulder, flung him back, where he tripped over the two corpses then twisted in his fall, landing on his wounded side.
Pain flared, stunning him.
‘No,’ Hedge moaned, pushing past Koryk who turned with a chagrined expression on his face.
‘Damn you, Koryk,’ Fiddler started.
‘No,’ said Quick Ben, ‘You don’t understand, Fid.’
Koryk shrugged. ‘Sorry, Sergeant. Habit.’
Fiddler watched the wizard follow Hedge over to where the three bodies were lying on the sand. But the sapper was paying no attention to the skewered Letherii, instead landing hard on his knees beside one of the Tiste Edur.
‘See the coins on that one?’ Cuttle asked. ‘Burned right in-’
‘That was the Emperor,’ said the captain who had brought them here. ‘Rhulad Sengar. The other Edur… I don’t know. But,’ he then added, ‘your friends do.’
Yes, Fiddler could see that, and it seemed all at once that there was nothing but pain in this place. Trapped in the last breaths, given voice by Hedge’s alarmingly uncharacteristic, almost animal cries of grief. Shaken, Fiddler turned to his soldiers. ‘Take defensive positions, all of you. Captain, you and the other prisoners over there, by that wall, and don’t move if you want to stay alive. Koryk, rest easy with that damned crossbow, all right?’
Fiddler then headed over to his friends.
And almost retreated again when he saw Hedge’s face, so raw with anguish, so… exposed.
Quick Ben turned and glanced back at Fiddler, a warning of some sort, and then the wizard walked over to the fallen Letherii.
Trembling, confused, Fiddler followed Quick Ben. Stood beside him, looking down at the man.
‘He’ll live,’ he said.
Behind them, Hedge rasped, ‘No he won’t.’
That voice did not even sound human. Fiddler turned in alarm, and saw Hedge staring up at Quick Ben, as if silent communication was passing between the two men.
Then Hedge asked, ‘Can you do it, Quick? Some place with… with eternal torment. Can you do that, wizard? I asked if you can do that!’
Quick Ben faced Fiddler, a question in his eyes.
Oh no, Quick, this one isn’t for me to say-
‘Fiddler, help me decide. Please.’
Gods, even Quick Ben’s grieving. Who was this warrior? ‘You’re High Mage, Quick Ben. Do what needs doing.’
The wizard turned back to Hedge. ‘Hood owes me, Hedge.’
‘What kind of answer is that?’
But Quick Ben turned, gestured, and a dark blur rose round the Letherii, closed entirely about the man’s body, then shrank, as if down into the sand, until nothing remained. There was a faint scream as whatever awaited the Letherii had reached out to take hold of him.
Then the wizard snapped out a hand and pulled Fiddler close, and his face was pale with rage. ‘Don’t you pity him, Fid. You understand me? Don’t you pity him!’
Fiddler shook his head. ‘I-I won’t, Quick. Not for a moment. Let him scream, for all eternity. Let him scream.’ A grim nod, then Quick Ben pushed him back. Hedge wept over the Tiste Edur, wept like a man for whom all light in the world has been lost, and would never return.
And Fiddler did not know what to do.
Watching from an unseen place, the Errant stepped back, pulled away as if he would hurl himself from a cliff.
He was what he was.
A tipper of balances.
And now, this day-may the Abyss devour him whole-a maker of widows.
Ascending the beach’s gentle slope, Karsa Orlong halted. He reached down to the sword impaling his leg, and closed a hand about the blade itself, just above the hilt. Unmindful of how the notched edges sliced into his flesh, he dragged the weapon free.
Blood bloomed from the puncture wounds, but only for a moment. The leg was growing numb, but he would have use of it for a while yet.
Still holding the cursed sword by its blade, he pushed himself forward, limped onto the sward. And saw, a short distance to his right, a small hut from which smoke gusted out.
The Toblakai warrior headed over.
Coming opposite it, he dropped the iron sword, took another step closer, bent down and pushed one hand under the edge of the hut. With an upward heave, he lifted the entire structure clear, sent it toppling onto its back like an upended turtle.
Smoke billowed, caught the breeze, and was swept away.
Before him, seated cross-legged, was an ancient, bent and broken creature.
A man. A god.
Who looked up with narrowed eyes filled with pain.
Then those eyes shifted, to behind Karsa, and the warrior turned.
The spirit of the Emperor had arrived, he saw. Young-younger than Karsa had imagined Rhulad Sengar to be-and, with his clear, unmarred flesh, a man not unhandsome. Lying on the ground as if in gentle sleep.
Then his eyes snapped open and he shrieked.
A short-lived try.
Rhulad pushed himself onto his side, up onto his hands and knees-and saw, lying close by, his sword.
‘Take it!’ the Crippled God cried. ‘My dear young champion, Rhulad Sengar of the Tiste Edur. Take up your sword!’
‘Do not,’ Karsa said. ‘Your spirit is here-it is all you have, all you are. When I kill it, oblivion will take you.’
‘Look at his leg! He is almost as crippled as I am! Take the sword, Rhulad, and cut him down!’
But Rhulad still hesitated, there on his hands and knees, his breaths coming in rapid gasps.
The Crippled God wheezed, coughed, then said in a low, crooning voice, ‘You can return, Rhulad. To your world. You can make it right. This time, you can make everything right. Listen to me, Rhulad. Trull is alive! Your brother, he is alive, and he walks to the Eternal Domicile! He walks to find you! Kill this Toblakai and you can return to him, you can say all that needs to be said!
‘Rhulad Sengar, you can ask his forgiveness.’
At that the Tiste Edur’s head lifted. Eyes suddenly alight, making him look… so young.
And Karsa Orlong felt, in his heart, a moment of regret.
Rhulad Sengar reached for the sword.
And the flint sword swung down, decapitating him.
The head rolled, settled atop the sword. The body pitched sideways, legs kicking spasmodically, then growing still as blood poured from the open neck. In a moment, that blood slowed.
Behind Karsa, the Crippled God hacked laughter, then said, ‘I have waited a long time for you, Karsa Orlong. I have worked so hard… to bring you to this sword. For it is yours, Toblakai. No other can wield it as you can. No other can withstand its curse, can remain sane, can remain its master. This weapon, my Chosen One, is for you.’
Karsa Orlong faced the Crippled God. ‘No-one chooses me. I do not give anyone that right. I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. All choices belong to me.’
‘Then choose, my friend. Fling away that pathetic thing of stone you carry. Choose the weapon made for you above all others.’
Karsa bared his teeth.
The Crippled God’s eyes widened briefly, then he leaned forward, over his brazier of smouldering coals. ‘With the sword, Karsa Orlong, you will be immortal.’ He waved a gnarled hand and a gate blistered open a few paces away. ‘There. Go back to your homeland, Karsa. Proclaim your-self Emperor of the Teblor. Guide your people for ever more. Oh, they are sorely beset. Only you can save them, Karsa Orlong. And with the sword, none can stand before you. You will save them, you will lead them to domination-a campaign of slaughtered “children” such as the world has never seen before. Give answer, Toblakai! Give answer to all the wrongs you and your people have suffered! Let the children witness!’
Karsa Orlong stared down at the Crippled God.
And his sneer broadened, a moment, before he turned away.
‘Do not leave it here! It is for you! Karsa Orlong, it is for you!’
Someone was coming up from the sand. A wide, heavily muscled man, and three black-skinned bhokorala.
Karsa limped to meet them.
Withal felt his heart pounding in his chest. He’d not expected… well, he’d not known what to expect, only what was expected of him.
‘You are not welcome,’ said the giant with the tattooed face and the wounded leg.
‘I’m not surprised. But here I am anyway.’ Withal’s eyes flicked to the sword lying in the grass. The Tiste Edur’s head was resting on it like a gift. The weaponsmith frowned. ‘Poor lad, he never understood-’
‘I do,’ growled the giant.
Withal looked up at the warrior. Then over to where crouched the Crippled God, before returning once more to his regard of the giant. ‘You said no?’
‘As much.’
‘Good.’
‘Will you take it now?’
‘I will-to break it on the forge where it was made.’ And he pointed to the ramshackle smithy in the distance.
The Crippled God hissed, ‘You said it could never be broken, Withal!’
The weaponsmith shrugged. ‘We’re always saying things like that. Pays the bills.’
A horrid cry was loosed from the Crippled God, ending in strangled hacking coughs.
The giant was studying Withal in return, and he now asked, ‘You made this cursed weapon?’
‘I did.’
The back-handed slap caught Withal by surprise, sent him flying backward. Thumping hard onto his back, staring up at the spinning blue sky-that suddenly filled with the warrior, looking down.
‘Don’t do it again.’
And after saying that, the giant moved off.
Blinking in the white sunlight, Withal managed to turn onto his side, and saw the giant walk into a portal of fire, then vanish as the Crippled God screamed again. The portal suddenly disappeared with a snarl.
One of the nachts brought its horrid little face close over Withal, like a cat about to steal his breath. It cooed.
‘Yes, yes,’ Withal said, pushing it away, ‘get the sword. Yes. Break the damned thing.’
The world spun round him and he thought he would be sick. ‘Sandalath, love, did you empty the bucket? Sure it was piss but it smelled mostly of beer, didn’t it? I coulda drunk it all over again, you see.’
He clambered upward, swayed back and forth briefly, then reached down and, after a few tries, collected the sword.
Off to the smithy. Not many ways of breaking a cursed sword. A weapon even nastier would do it, but in this case there wasn’t one. So, back to the old smith’s secret. To break an aspected weapon, bring it home, to the forge where it was born.
Well, he would do just that, and do it now.
Seeing the three nachts peering up at him, he scowled. ‘Go bail out the damned boat-I’m not in the mood to drown fifty sweeps from shore.’
The creatures tumbled over each in their haste to rush back to the beach.
Withal walked to the old smithy, to do what needed doing.
Behind him, the Crippled God bawled to the sky.
A terrible, terrible sound, a god’s cry. One he never wanted to hear ever again.
At the forge, Withal found an old hammer, and prepared to undo all that he had done. Although, he realized as he set the sword down on the rust-skinned anvil and studied the blood-splashed blade, that was, in all truth, impossible.
After a moment, the weaponsmith raised the hammer.
Then brought it down.